


the breach

by tootsonnewts



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Pacific Rim, M/M, Multiple Pov, NaNoWriMo 2017, Pacific Rim AU, everyone is just trying to do their best and save the world, jaegers are definitely cool, kaiju are pretty cool okay, multi-dimensional space alien lizards and the humans who fight them, ocean opera, there’s a love story in there too
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-04
Updated: 2018-01-23
Packaged: 2019-02-10 17:33:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 58,749
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12916824
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tootsonnewts/pseuds/tootsonnewts
Summary: Shiro knows the truth. They all know the truth. Those walls won’t stop shit.For years, Kaiju have invaded Earth from an interdimensional rift deep below the surface of the Pacific Ocean’s waters. Amid increasing attacks, loss of resources, and lack of qualified candidates, the Jaeger program established to fight these enemies is on the brink of collapse. Faced with the threat of apocalypse, the Pan Pacific Defense Corps makes a last ditch effort to defeat the threat before the world runs out of time.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> well hello, and welcome to the entirely gratuitous pacific rim au i wrote for nanowrimo! 
> 
> before we get started, i just wanna note a few things:  
> -this story is complete, fully written, ready to go, etc. i’ll be posting a chapter a week starting today, with the rest of the updates landing on tuesdays.  
> -the italicised chapter intros are quoted from other sources, which i will link as necessary!  
> -there is also some dialogue from the movie i’ve dropped in because it was either important or badass, and i love this movie, okay fight me (just kidding, please don’t). see if you can spot it all.  
> -thank you so much to everyone who encouraged me along the way and helped me go over details, suggested things, or just generally listened to me whine and complain while i wrote this (my beautiful, wonderful space bitches, especially)!!!
> 
> there is a playlist i put together for this au, because i felt like being Very Extra™ when i wrote this. you can find it [here](https://open.spotify.com/user/ashleywasadiver/playlist/44QEvw3uMThs32xZrhP9zV), if you are so inclined to listen.
> 
> that’s everything, i believe.  
> i hope you enjoy the story!

_“When I was a kid, whenever I'd feel small or lonely, I'd look up at the stars. Wondered if there was life up there. Turns out I was looking in the wrong direction. When alien life entered our world, it was from deep beneath the Pacific Ocean. A fissure between two tectonic plates. A portal between dimensions. The Breach. I was fifteen when the first Kaiju made land in San Francisco._

_By the time tanks, jets and missiles took it down, six days and 35 miles later, three cities were destroyed. Tens of thousands of lives were lost. We mourned our dead, memorialized the attack, and moved on. And then, only six months later, the second attack hit Manila._

_Then the third one hit Cabo. And then the fourth. And then we learned this was not gonna stop. This was just the beginning. We needed a new weapon. The world came together, pooling its resources and throwing aside old rivalries for the sake of the greater good. To fight monsters, we created monsters of our own. The Jaeger program was born.”_

_-[Survivor’s Account of First Recorded Kaiju Attack](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bGbU_20InKM) _

 

+++

 

It’s cold on the base. Of course it’s cold on the base, Russia tends to be cold in the winter. But lately, it’s been the heavy, wet type of cold that sinks into your bones, wrapping them in permafrost and cracking through the joints. It’s the kind of cold that reaches your brain and numbs you down, toe-to-tip, until your nerves are frayed and muzzled and your fingers refuse to cooperate anymore. It’s the kind of cold that wears you down, spreads you thin, scrapes you back up, and lays you out again. It’s the kind of cold Shiro’s felt deep in his chest for years now. It almost makes him feel at home. It almost lets him know he’s still alive. He hates it.

Shiro sits on the edge of the cot that passes for a bed, in the closet that passes for a room, in the complex that passes for a home, and regards the stack of blank manila files in his hand. Even with the heat turned up it’s chilly in his room. On days like this, he always suffers a raw ache deep in the muscle of what’s left of his missing arm. The cold puts extra pressure on his body, the heavy weight of his metal prosthetic dragging down his shoulder and testing the ligaments left behind. Days like these, it’s easier to remember. Days like these, it’s harder to get out of bed.

He flips open the cover of the topmost file. When he sees the blurry profile photo paperclipped inside, his eyebrows jump clean up to his hairline. The face that looks back at him is a petulant ghost. Whispers of his existence still play through bootcamps and Shatterdomes scattered across the globe. Comparisons to his records remain a constant benchmark of testing and qualifications. But the man himself? Nothing more than a presumed body left behind in the ravages of a loveless war. Nobody’s heard anything about Keith Kogane in months; most just assumed he genuinely was dead. Shiro tended to side with them. He knows the things this war can take from a person. A life is nothing to the endless turn of the machine. He also knows that records aren’t all it takes to make a man.

It’s one thing to know about a person because their reputation precedes them. It’s another thing to hold a thick stack of papers casually outlining the entirety of their life in your hands. Nothing but stone cold facts and numbers, beginning, most surprisingly, with the fact that he’s still alive somewhere. Aside from perfunctory psych evals, there are no opinions here. Metrics, numbers, graphs, all pointing to _yes, he’s the best, but he’s combative and rebellious._ Shiro raises an eyebrow again as he peruses the multitude of infractions laced throughout his record. He is, it would seem, problematic at best. Shiro likes a challenge. At this point, he basically _needs_ one to survive. This seems to be a hell of a challenge. But enough of that for now. He shuffles Kogane’s file to the bottom of the stack and moves on.

Although it is a luxury in short supply these days, Shiro likes to take his time when reviewing new recruits. He gets up to brew a small pot of coffee, then sits down at his desk to sip his way through the pot while he browses the rest of the recruits. None look so promising as Kogane. It must be intimidating to be grouped in with someone essentially considered to be a genius of his time. It must be difficult to _be_ that person. Perhaps that’s part of why he’s so problematic. Shiro snorts. _Problematic_.

Sharp rapping against the metal of his door startles him from his work. He makes to stand from his desk, but the door slides open before he even straightens his knees, and in strides Lance.

“Shiro! My man! My buddy! My dude!”

“My room.”

Lance stops talking, eyebrows popping up quizzically.

“This is my room.”

Lance makes a big show of looking around, checking the ceiling, inspecting the pictures of the walls, glancing over at the bed. “Why, yes. Yes, it appears so.”

Back when he was just a recruit at the Galaxy Garrison, training to maybe one day be a space pilot and see the stars, his dad liked to sign all of his emails from home with the same saying: ‘Patience yields focus.’ At the time, Shiro thought it ridiculous. Just one of those things that dads say when they think they need to sound deep to their kids, when really they don’t know what the hell is going on. Life and time changed his view, though. Patience yields persistence. Patience yields the ability to remain calm. Patience can save your life. He would know.

In this instance, patience is gonna need to save Lance’s life. Shiro takes a calming breath.

“It’s funny, because I feel like I’ve said this to you before, Lance. You can’t just walk into my room.”

“Uhhh, no,” Lance counters. “You said I can’t just walk into your room _unannounced_. But I knocked! That’s an announcement!”

Lance looks very smug.

_Patience yields focus._

Shiro wipes his hand across his face.

“Okay, Ranger. What do you want?”

Lance smirks up at him.

“Iverson just radioed in. They’ll be here in an hour.”

Shiro snaps to attention and looks up at the clock hanging over his door. He must have lost track of time while he went over the files. He curses his need for three cups of coffee.

“ _Shit._ ”

He grabs his uniform shirt off the back of his chair, throwing it haphazardly over his shoulders and jamming his feet into his boots. He fumbles with his buttons, trying to line them up, but failing. Eventually, Lance takes pity on him and slaps his hands away to just do it himself.

“Jeez, boss. If I knew you were going to be this crazy over it, I’d have come and seen you sooner.”

Shiro sighs, relenting his grip on his shirt to allow Lance’s deft fingers to smoothly fasten it up.

“I’m sorry. It’s just that this batch is so crucial, we need to get this right.”

Lance barks a short laugh and claps his hand down on Shiro’s shoulder.

“Look, man, if there’s one person we can be guaranteed to get things right, it’s you.”

Shiro rolls his eyes. “Flattery won’t grant you any favors.”

“Tell that to Hunk.” Lance winks and saunters from the room draped in the confidence of a man who knows he’s absolutely, positively, one-hundred-percent correct. The annoying things is that he is.

Flattery always grants Lance any number of favors he so desires. He’s ridiculous and larger than life, but he can also be persuasive with a quicksilver tongue. And he’s right, Hunk is absolutely the one who can prove it. They’ve been best friends for ten years, married for five, and co-pilots for three, but Shiro would swear they were birthed as two halves of a whole straight from the center of the universe. Their piloting - their very _existence_ \- is a sight to behold: always in perfect tandem, always in total agreement, able to read each other in every sort of way. Shiro knows the science, so he knows it to be an impossibility, but if he didn’t, he would think their drift never breaks, even long after they step out of their Jaeger.  (He suspects, although he’s never actually _asked_ , that they definitely ghost drift every time they step out of their harnesses. It would explain why they take so long to leave their Conn-pod after each mission.) If the PPDC were to come up with the poster children for drift compatibility, the pilots of the Paladin Danger would be it.

Just before he steps into the hall, Shiro looks through the window over his bunk to see a dark storm raging ( _again_ ; it always seems to be storming these days), churning the ocean outside. He sighs and doubles back for a coat and umbrella. Finally, fifty-eight minutes and thirty-one, two, three seconds after Iverson’s message, Shiro emerges outside on the landing deck. Through the hazy darkness of the storm clouds overhead, he can just barely make out the shape of the approaching helicopter, full (hopefully) of the program’s newest recruits.

They’ve been dwindling in number, the recruits. Either the program can’t find anyone who truly measures up, or the allotted funding for the month runs out, or some new orders come through the pipeline to tell the Marshall to wait until a new section of the Wall is completed before running through new tests. Whatever the reason, Shiro knows there’s been some chatter from upstairs about whether or not the Pan Pacific Defense Corps is truly needed to fight the Kaiju anymore. They all sit in their offices made of glass and marble, chew the butts of their expensive cigars, and drown out the voices of reason with their whisky on the rocks while good men and women die to ensure those precious walls can even be built.

Shiro knows the truth. They all know the truth. Those walls won’t stop shit.

 

+++

 

“Matt! Matt, come here!”

Katie hears Matt bang his head on the bottom of the table that he’s been crouched under for the past hour.

“Oof, damn! Katie, please!”

She huffs and tightens her ponytail, then pushes her glasses up the bridge of her nose.

“Yeah, yeah, I’m sorry, but you _seriously_ need to come here!”

“Alright, alright. Just gimme a second, I’m almost done...with...annnnnddd...there!”

An electric whirr sounds from the center of the room, and Katie turns to see the vertical holo-ring flicker to life between them. It’s been burnt out for the past couple weeks because nobody’s been able to get the fuse the Holt siblings requested two _months_ ago, so they had to improvise. Hopefully, nobody will notice the missing burner coils from the cafeteria…

The image in the center of the ring sharpens, displaying a 3d model projection of the PPDC insignia, but it’s quickly chased away by Matt’s crowning glory: an explicitly detailed model of the breach, complete with surrounding topography, and a pulse rate of the electromagnetic signatures that emit from the mouth every now and again. Like a monitor for the world’s strangest heart, only they can touch and poke and theorize. Katie loves the holo-ring most of all the gadgets they’ve put together in their extensive lab. She’s named it R.O.V.E.R.: Real-time Observational Virtual Example Ring. The language is a little clunky, but nobody needs to know that.

Katie wipes the chalk dust from her hands, and sets the piece she was writing with in the utensil tray of the board she’s working at. Leaning in to the model of the breach, she keeps an eye on the pulse. It’s faster than it was a week ago. That’s the problem.

“ _Matt_ ,” she urges.

“Yeah, okay, I’m sorry.” He finishes taping up an electrical junction and comes to stand at her side.

She gestures up to the board, where she’s been working out algorithms for the past several hours. The numbers and symbols sprawl from floor to ceiling, edge to edge. To call this a chalkboard would be disrespectful. It’s a chalk _wall_. A chalk wall full of terrible, terrible news.

She claps her hands together behind her back as Matt surveys her work.

“I don’t think I need to tell you what this means, big bro.”

He continues reading, face paling as he goes.

“ _Holy shit, Katie._ ”

“I know. We need to tell Iverson.”

 

+++

 

Lance has never really understood why everyone makes such a big deal about recruit day. Okay, so _sure_ it’s exciting to get new blood around the base, and _sure_ watching the spars down in the Kwoon always makes for a good time, but if he’s being totally honest, everything is so rote and disappointing these days that he hardly sees the need to attend until someone actually tells him there’s a potential match. Even then, he braces himself for the inevitable.

He’s distracted and he knows it, which is why when Hunk takes him down with a leg sweep, he can’t find it in himself to be all that surprised. It’s a tradition of theirs to spar in the Kwoon every new arrival morning. Of course, they spar basically every day, but usually they reserve a training room in the gym to do it. A new batch of recruits always dredges up an old batch of memories for the both of them, though, so they can’t help but find themselves trailing through a tiny part of their history together via taped fists and bo staffs.

“Point,” Hunk announces triumphantly from above him, reaching out a hand to help him up. Lance grasps it and pulls himself to his feet.

He shakes his head to clear his thoughts, and they circle each other, watching for tells before clashing again. Lance feints a twitch of his right wrist, and Hunk (predictably) brings his staff down toward him from overhead. Lance thrusts his staff upward between clenched fists. The wooden rods clack against each other, lightning quick and thunder loud in the empty room, sending reverberating echoes down his staff and into his hand.

Hunk hops back from the strike with a huff. “You’re distracted today, babe.”

Lance shakes out his wrist and smiles a little. “Yeah.”

Then he feints again, driving Hunk to repeat his recourse. Instead of reaching up, Lance sidesteps, catching Hunk’s back with the end of his staff.

“Not distracted enough to lose, though.”

Hunk laughs and drops his arms, Lance following his lead. Their weapons forgotten, Hunk reaches out and pulls Lance to his chest, smoothing a big, warm hand through his sweat-soaked hair.

“Tell me what’s on your mind?”

“The usual.”

“Ah. Recruit day blues.”

“Recruit day blues.”

“Well, we have to stay positive. You never know, there could be a perfect match on their way to us now. Hell, maybe even _Shiro’s_ match.”

Lance snorts. “When the Anteverse freezes over, maybe.”

Hunk laughs and pats his back. “Alright, drama king. Negativity never helped anyone. Let’s go get some showers and food before they get here.”

“Yes, dad.”

“Mmmm, I like that,” Hunk quips. “Call me dad again.”

“Fuck you, dad,” he grumbles, battling back the smile on his lips.

“Oh my god, yes. I’m so horny for it!” Hunk shouts, darting from the room.

Lance stifles his laughter and heads for the showers.

Thirty minutes and a change of clothes later, Lance finds himself picking at his green beans and still contemplating the complexity of the drift. It’s a fragile connection at best, and he’s always wondered why it takes sparring to find it. He thinks over all the times he’s seen Shiro take someone on in the Kwoon and can’t help but draw a big question mark over the whole thing. Lance is no scientist, but he’s always thought there’s gotta be some better way to determine compatibility than competing in a government sanctioned fight club in a padded room with a fancy name. What about like, an EKG? A genetic markup? Those tests cops make you do when they pull you over because they think you’re drunk driving? How come there isn’t a drift simulator at this point? It would spare them all some wasted time and a lot more wasted hope.

Lance softens a bit in his mind when he considers all of Shiro’s wasted hope in particular. How any one person can go through what that man has and still come out with any shred of the stuff is way beyond him. It would be kinder to let him go on to some other assignment, really. Let him oversee base operations or the central lab branch. It seems unfair and cruel, honestly, to continually keep him in a state of limbo. Keeping that old machine of his around doesn’t do anything to help the situation, either.

False hope is the killer of men.

He believes in drift compatibility - of course he does, he lives it every day. But he’s also starting to believe that it’s petering out, becoming a rarity. The very notion of someone being drift compatible with two people in their lives, nonetheless in three years is basically unheard of. Hunk rips a snore from next to him, face dropping down into the book he was reading. His nose hitting the pages startles him awake and he jerks himself back upright. Lance smiles softly when they make eye contact, and Hunk lazily reaches over for his hand to play with his ring.

A tray slams down on the table across from them and Lance glances up to see Allura sliding onto the bench.

“Hello, my dears! Looking _ever_ so excited for today’s new batch, I see.”

Lance rolls his eyes and Hunk snorts a good-natured laugh. Allura smirks and picks up her fork, poking at her corn and glancing around the room, a little lost.

Hunk picks up on her cue first. “And where is our favorite gorgeous man?”

It’s Allura’s turn to snort out across the table. “That old goat is around here somewhere. He told me he’d make it in time for lunch, but I haven’t seen him all day.”

Something that’s always struck Lance as incredibly interesting is the fact that there can be drift partnerships with no romantic or familial connections at all. Well, if he thinks about it, Allura and Coran may as well be family. He’s basically her cool uncle at this point. So maybe he’s wrong. Either way, he thinks the pilots of The Castle are one of the most interesting pairs he’s come across in quite some time, including Hunk and himself.

Coran was Allura’s godfather - well, technically he still is, but Lance isn’t quite sure at what age that agreement expires - and her father’s best friend. When Allura joined the PPDC, Coran did, too. A package deal. Originally, they were researchers and outreach specialists (they still do it occasionally), but as time went on and the war raged harder, they realized they were drift compatible and the rest, as they say, was history. Cool-ass, giant-robot-wrapped history.

When Lance first met the pair, he waited for literal weeks to see them share some type of affection to confirm their connection one way or another. It never came. What did come was the end of Hunk’s patience with his speculation, so one day, as they were all running drift drills, Hunk just up and asked about their relationship on behalf of his husband. To this day, Lance can’t get Coran to stop making fun of him.

“I’m sorry I’m late, everyone!”

Speak of the devil.

“And why, if I may be so bold, _are_ you so late today?” Allura questions, judgement laced all over the words.

“I needed to go see the boys downstairs! They told me they had some updates for the Jaegers I’d want to take a peek at before Allura and I go out on assignment!”

They all perk up at that. Coran takes a bite of meatloaf and settles into his seat. He closes his eyes and lets out a euphoric _‘mmmmmmm’_ , forgetting about the world at large.

“Coran, buddy.” Hunk prods him gently. “You gonna _tell us_ about those upgrades, or are we gonna have to guess? Because you know how good we all are with that.”

Hunk shoots Lance a very pointed look and Lance feels his cheeks heat up.

“I still don’t understand why you guys won’t let that go! I thought a mini-fridge was a _great_ idea!”

Allura smiles and pats his hand in that way that mothers do when they’re trying to make their kids feel better after they said something stupid, but they still want their kids to understand that they said something stupid. The physical equivalent of _Bless Your Heart_. Lance pouts and pulls his hand back toward himself.

“Yes, well, be that as it may,” Coran replies, “The upgrades do not, unfortunately, include mini-fridges.”

Lance groans.

“What they do include,” Coran continues, thrusting his plastic fork skyward, “is updated plasma cannons!”

Hunk drops his fork and leans over the table, grabbing Coran by the front of his shirt.

“Stop talking right now and take me there.”

Hunk’s love for and genius in engineering is one of the reasons Lance loves him so much. Only he could get so overly excited about seeing a new robot upgrade that he could physically assault the bearer of good news without meaning to. The same moment Lance has the thought, Hunk seems to realize that he’s grasping Coran for dear life and sheepishly lets go, smoothing down his shirt.

“Please. Take me there, _please_. I’d, uh, I’d really like to see them.”

Coran regards him amusedly. “Well, I suppose it would do a world of good for our morale before these new recruits arrive, yes? Let’s all go to the hangar.”

Allura sweeps up everyone’s trays, and Lance reaches out to help.

“Allow me, princess,” he trills, scraping into a low bow.

She snorts and slaps playfully at his arm.

“What in the world will we ever do with those boys?” she asks as they walk to the bank of trash cans, throwing a glance over her shoulder at Hunk and Coran, who are now animatedly speaking with their shoulders pressed close together. If Lance didn’t know any better, he would swear they’re _vibrating_ in excitement.

“Well, I dunno about you, but when this shit is over, I’m taking mine on vacation.”

Allura laughs and links her arm through his, dragging him out of the cafeteria toward the elevator bank.

 

+++

 

Shiro’s communications tablet vibrates in his hand just as the chopper sets down on the landing pad. Glancing down, he catches sight of a very rare occurrence: a message from Pidge down in the lab.

 **_Holt.K_ ** _\- Shiro, I need to see Iverson ASAP upon landing._

Checking to make sure nobody has disembarked yet, Shiro types out a bemused response.

 **_Shirogane.T_ ** _\- You know it’s a busy day, Katie. What’s up?_

 **_Holt.K_ ** _\- Just trust me on this one. And stop calling me Katie._

Shiro smiles down at the tablet.

 **_Shirogane.T_ ** _\- Yes, Katie._

 **_Holt.K_ ** _\- We’re not friends anymore._

A throat clears in front of him, and Shiro snaps his head up to find Marshall Iverson impatiently regarding him, hands crossed behind his back. Shiro does his best not to grimace in his face, and holds out the umbrella in his hand to cover them both.

“Welcome back, Marshall. I apologize, I just received word that they need to see you down in the breach lab ASAP.”

The Marshall raises an eyebrow at him. “Are they aware of what day it is?”

Shiro hates this part of his job the very most. He and the Marshall respect each other and have somewhat of an understanding, but it still annoys him to no end when he gets asked questions like he has no idea what he’s doing. His hand flexes minutely around the handle of the umbrella.

“I reiterated that to them, but they say it’s urgent.”

The Marshall glances over his shoulder at the two neat lines of recruits waiting in perfect formation, stock-still in the driving rain. They all look very green and very tightly-wound. Shiro knows that look. Those ones never last too long in the Kwoon. He hopes beyond hope that he’s wrong.

“Private Brooks!” the Marshall barks, and a member of the Analysis team steps forward. “Get these recruits inside to their quarters. Brief them as usual, training starts in three days!”

“Yes, sir!” Brooks replies and marches forward to instruct the new charges.

Shiro and Iverson watch them file past, Shiro counting as they go by.

“Sir?”

“Shirogane.”

“You sent me the files for eight recruits.”

“I did.”

“There are only seven here.”

“Well spotted. I’ll be picking up Kogane later.”

“...I see.”

In the history of his time on this base, Shiro has never encountered an instance where recruits arrive separately. You either come in with the fresh crop or you don’t come in at all. Something about this strikes him as exceptionally odd, but he can’t entirely put his finger on it. The Marshall sighs from beside him.

“Takashi, I’m going to be frank with you.”

Well, that’s a bad sign. That’s a very bad sign. The Marshall has only ever used Shiro’s first name once in their entire professional relationship. That one time was...a very unfortunate event.

“Sir?”

“I haven’t quite nailed Kogane down yet.”

“I don’t understand, sir.”

“Tomorrow morning, I’ll be trying to convince him to come back. I leave tonight.”

On one hand, it’s better than he thought it could be. On the other, it’s about what he expected. Shiro knows they’re hard-up for pilots, but he never thought it would come down to chasing ghosts around the world. If the man doesn’t want to be found, he doesn’t want to be found. Shiro can respect that. Hell, Shiro sometimes wishes he could _be_ that. But we can’t all have what we want. Sometimes, duty is just bigger than desire. Still, though, he can’t quite keep himself from being skeptical about how much Iverson truly knows.

“And you know where he is, sir?”

Iverson starts walking inside.

“I have a fairly good lead. Now, let’s go see what the Holts want.”

“Yes, sir.” Shiro closes his umbrella and trails toward the scientist’s lair, a few steps behind the Marshall.

The walk downstairs is silent, but the complex is loud. As they work their way down the flights of stairs (Iverson has some sort of vendetta against elevators, Shiro would swear, if he didn’t know that he uses them regularly. Because of this, Shiro tends to think the excessive stair use in his presence is some sort of punishment. For what, he’s not entirely sure he’ll ever find out.), Shiro listens to the familiar clink-clunk of the air registers turning over, the reverberating motors of the socket drivers in use up on the maintenance bay, the roaring of the Jaeger engines as they run through their daily tests. Distantly, he thinks he should go check on Black, but he forces the thought back to the very edges of his mind where it belongs.

They arrive at the breach lab and Marshall Iverson sweeps in with all the regality of a king approaching his throne.

Matt is on the floor under a desk and Pidge is frantically scribbling across her precious chalkboard wall.

“Holts,” the Marshall starts. Matt bangs his head on the underside of the table he’s crouched under, and Shiro has to stifle a laugh. “I heard my presence was requested this afternoon.”

Pidge drops her chalk and wanders over. “Yes. Yes, your presence was, indeed, requested.”

“And you are aware of what day it is?”

Shiro rolls his eyes. Pidge and Matt share a look.

“Yes, Marshall, we are most certainly aware.”

Pidge is a small woman in stature. She’s no taller than Shiro’s chest and thin as a wisp, but her presence more than makes up for her...shortcomings. Pidge has this supernatural ability to expand her aura out to fill any room. She can make herself disappear. She can sneak up on you and bash you over the head with her wit and intelligence. She is a force to be reckoned with, and Shiro is a bit afraid of her, honestly. She pulls herself up to her full height, dusts off her lab coat, pushes her glasses up the bridge of her nose, and suddenly, she’s ten feet tall with a scowl to match.

Shiro and Matt watch silently as she and the Marshall stare each other down for millennia-tinged moments.

“Alright, then,” the Marshall relents, and Pidge smirks victoriously. “Show me what’s so important.”

“Gladly.”

She marches over to her chalkboard and sweeps her hand out over the expanse.

“This is all of my math for the rate of every Kaiju event that occurred last year. If you notice over here-” she gestures to the left side of the chalkboard- “the attacks were running at a pretty consistent rate of approximately one every eight weeks.”

The Marshall looks at the board as if he understands the equations he’s viewing and Shiro shifts around on his feet. Iverson is staring somewhere at the center of the chalkboard, but the equations in question are a little bit further to the side of his line of vision. Pidge notices too, and scoffs in Shiro’s direction.

“I could have deduced this myself, Holt.”

“Yes, I suppose you could, _but_ we’ve been tracking the events over the course of _this_ year, and the attacks have doubled thus far. At the beginning of the year, they went up to once every six weeks, then once every four weeks by the time we reached summer.”

Shiro, unlike the Marshall, understands math. To be fair, he understands Pidge’s algorithms because she’s explained them before, but he gets it. He steps forward, hand on chin, raking his eyes over the chalkboard. Something about these numbers looks…

“Now look at this,” Matt’s voice calls from the center of the room. “I repaired the holo-ring and loaded in the best model we’ve been able to create based on what we know about the breach near us.”

Shiro looks at the image projected up into the ring between them all. He had forgotten how impressive the map was when it was running, and how much _more_ impressive it was at the mercy of the skillful hands of one Matt Holt. Shiro takes a moment to regard the breach. It’s conical in shape, a funnel tapering down into a small tunnel until it blows back out wide into the rift, where the map just...stops. In earlier versions of this visual, the rift would end, sure, but there was always some sort of artistic blurring around its edges to signify the unknown origins. This map, though, has sharp and defined outlines.

Looking up at Matt and Pidge, Shiro crinkles his eyebrows. “Why does it stop?”

Matt and Pidge share another look.

“We have a hypothesis,” he answers. “And you aren’t going to like it.”

“I’ve been tracking the events over the past six months specifically,” Pidge begins again, gesturing to the center of the chalkboard. “They’ve been increasing, like I said. Six months ago, we were looking at an event once every four weeks, but three months ago we made the jump to once every two. If we continue the work exponentially, then by the end of February, we could be looking at an event once every-”

“Week,” Shiro finishes her sentence for her in astonishment. He looks over the math again, but notices that her formulas change minutely toward the end. He thinks he knows where this is going, but goddammit, does he ever hope he’s wrong.

“Yes,” she affirms. “But, more than that, since the events are occurring exponentially, then I would wager to say that by the time we get there, we could be looking at double events. Maybe even triple.”

Being right when you don’t want to be is a real son of a bitch.

“Well, that’s all well and good,” the Marshall speaks up. “But if I’m going to do anything with this, I need more than just predictions. I need more than just _math_.”

Pidge recoils.

“Well, then you’re going to have a problem,” Matt pipes up. “Because all we can give you is math.”

“Numbers _do not lie_ , Marshall,” Pidge states, drawing herself up to her full height. “We _will_ see a double event, and then after that, three, and then four, until-”

“We’re dead,” the Marshall finishes.

“ _YES_ ,” Matt and Pidge both confirm. Shiro raises a brow. Even under intense pressure, the siblings are well in tune with each other.

“But, here’s where the good news is,” Pidge continues, leading them back to the map of the breach.

“Here, at the top, is our universe.” She draws a circle at the widest part of the funnel. “And here, is theirs.”

She draws another at the bottom, just over the rift. “Shiro, you asked earlier why the breach stops. Even though we already knew that our universe and the universe the Kaiju come from are connected by the breach, we weren’t exactly sure how deep it went, right? Recently, though, the increase of activity has kind of helped me figure it out. The reason the breach appears to just stop now is because _that_ is where we think the connection point between our universes lies.”

“Pidge, that’s incredible! So, if you know where it is, that means we can go take it down, right?”

“Ehhhhh, in a way?”

Shiro and the Marshall look at each other.

“My point here is that there may be a solution to our problem!”

“And that would be?” the Marshall asks.

Shiro looks over at Matt. He looks incredibly nervous and a little on edge. They make eye contact, and Shiro sends him his most reassuring look. He hopes so, anyway. In return for his troubles, he gets a watery smile. Close enough.

“Well,” Pidge says, “We know the breach only opens up long enough for the Kaiju to come through, and then it closes up behind them, like a door. If these attacks continue to speed up, and they will eventually, the breach will have to remain open to allow for the rate of expulsion.”

“Meaning?”

“ _Meaning_ ,” she sighs, “that the breach will have to be open long enough to give us a window to drop an explosive device down through the throat so we can collapse the thing! Boom!”

She makes her point by bumping her own fists together and exploding them.

“We understand,” Matt takes over, “that you may not want to rush in there with information that seems so...limited. So we have a proposal.”

Matt pulls a rolling table into the space between them all. “Why do we classify the Kaiju the way that we do? You know, category one, category two, category three? It’s because each one is completely different from the other, right? One looks like a shark, the other looks like a fish, another-”

“HOLT,” the Marshall interrupts, “get on with it.”

“Right yes. What I’m saying is I don’t think they’re different at all.”

The Marshall raises an eyebrow.

“Look at this,” Matt gestures to a rectangular hunk of a Kaiju’s...something that Shiro doesn’t recognize. “This is a sample from a category three Kaiju the team took down here this year.”

He gestures to another sample. “And this is a sample off of a category one kaiju that was taken down in Manila. _Six years ago_.”

They look the same to Shiro.

“They’re exactly the same,” Matt confirms. “They have the same exact DNA. They’re clones!”

“This is where we get a little wild, admittedly,” Pidge whispers between Shiro and Iverson’s heads.

Matt leads them over to a tank just off to the side of the room. Inside is another piece of Kaiju, hooked up to hoses and wires, floating in a yellowed liquid. He trails his fingers down the side of the tank as he speaks reverently.

“We know a lot about the Kaiju already, but we think we’ve only scratched the surface.”

Matt turns around and glances at Pidge. She nods for him to continue.

“This is a piece of a Kaiju’s brain,” he says. Shiro thinks he knows where this is going. They were right. He doesn’t like it.

“It’s a little bit damaged, so it’s not at full strength, but it’s still alive. That’s the important part!”

Pidge steps forward. “We think we can tap into it.”

 _Goddammit_.

“We’d be using the same technology that lets the Jaeger pilots share a neural bridge.”

 _Fucking goddammit_.

“You want to drift with a Kaiju,” Shiro grits out. Pidge and Matt at least have the decency to look sheepish.

“Shiro, I know,” she says. “But imagine the information we could get! We could tell you the exact way you could get through the breach! How to take it down! What their plan is! The exact moment we can drop a payload into the throat and end this thing for good!”

“The neural surge would be too much for you,” Shiro replies.

“I agree,” states the Marshall.

“We _don’t_ agree,” argues Pidge.

“Absolutely not,” the Marshall says, holding up a hand. “I’d like your math on my desk by the morning. You will _not_ drift with a Kaiju. It’s out of the question. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have a flight to catch.”

He turns and sweeps out of the room. Both Holts shift their pleading gaze onto Shiro.

“Look, guys. I know you think this is the right thing to do, but it’s just too dangerous. I have to agree with the Marshall here. I’m sorry.”

Before either of them can really lay the guilt on heavy, Shiro follows the Marshall out of the lab.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> keith appears, katie sees a ghost, and two very good men fight a very bad monster

_“The conception of the wall began as early as 2020._ _The assumption that no Kaiju would attack a wall bordering the coastline was the primary rationale behind supporting the wall over the Jaeger Program. The belief that the Jaeger Program would benefit the world in the long run was thought to be a hypothesis without a strong basis. The project and wall itself was dubbed the "Wall of Life Program."_

_-[News Reel Narration from 2025 Special on PPDC Ranger Program](http://pacificrim.wikia.com/wiki/Anti-Kaiju_Wall) _

 

+++

 

It’s hot in the warehouse. Of course it’s hot in the warehouse, floor to ceiling bodies and constantly working machinery tend to make for a hot environment. But today, it’s the heavy, oppressive type of heat that lays over your body like a blanket, smothering your breathing and fraying your nerves. It’s the kind of heat that melts into your spine and loosens your joints, cartilage to membrane, until your movements are sloppy and uncoordinated and your limbs refuse to work with the grace you command of them. It’s the kind of heat that trails sweat down your spine, into your eyes, along your legs, and refuses to let you dry off before more comes along. It’s the kind of heat Keith has been running from for years now. It almost makes him feel at home. It almost lets him know he’s still alive. He hates it.

He leans forward on his perch, a beam of scaffolding elevated slightly above the workfloor, eyes sharp and watching as the foreman strides to the middle of the room. All motion ceases and all noise dies the moment he heaves his body up on the platform in the center. Keith shifts his work pack around on his back.

“Alright, boys!” the Foreman shouts to the room at large. “I got good news and I got bad news for ya! Which one ya want first?”

Some chunky newcomer raises his battered lunch box over his head. “Bad news?”

Everyone else groans.

“Bad news it is! Bad news: three guys working the top of the wall died yesterday.”

The groans peter out into the resigned humming of men acknowledging their fragile existence in this way of life.

“Now the good news!” he continues, flashing three red booklets. “I have three new assignments! Top of the wall!”

The room at large goes still and silent again.

“Okay, who wants to work and who wants to eat?! C’mon!”

Keith hops down from the i-beam he was crouched on, straightens the reel of safety line laid across his back, and strides forward. “I’ll take one.”

Welding at the top of the wall is dangerous work. Welding at the top of the wall in the winter in Sitka, Alaska is a death wish. There’s a reason nobody wants to take the shot when work up top filters through. If this site wasn’t a work-for-ration build, Keith is fairly certain nobody would ever come here to work at all. It would be fair, he thinks. You can die in the snow at the hands of gravity or die in a heated house at the claws of an alien lizard monster. You still die either way.

Keith finishes his weld and stands, one hand on the side of the support beam he was just welding against, one dangling down into the cold air. He turns his torso, looking out over the horizon. The unending construction wages on around him; miles and miles of scaffolding and sheet metal, a movie scored by the sounds of grinders and bolt guns. He thinks briefly about the sign he passes every day on his way into the job site:

**DEFENDING YOUR FUTURE!**

**ALASKA - CALIFORNIA**

**ANTI-KAIJU WALL**

**PACIFIC PERIMETER PROJECT WORKS ADMINISTRATION**

**300 MILE SECTION COMPLETION BY:**

Only, the completion date had long since been defaced. Someone with a chip on their shoulder and a red can of spray paint corrected the previous year to read **NEVER** in thick, bold lines. Keith won’t say it was him, but he also won’t say it _wasn’t_ him.

The scrub working the beam next to him stops in the middle of his grind and stands up, looking satisfied with himself. He hooks in and slides down to the ground for lunch. Keith snorts softly and starts packing up his gear. _Never, indeed._

He’s just grabbing his lunch from the filthy communal microwave when someone turns the television up. On screen is footage of a Kaiju breaking through the Sydney Anti-Kaiju Wall like it’s no more than drywall. It strides right through, just in front of the opera house, and it’s ironic, really, that they match. The Kaiju’s head is all sweeping curves and sharp points, a joke of a coincidence. A frantic newscaster reads out a breaking update, just on the wrong side of too loud.

_“I’m here in Sydney, where earlier today, another Kaiju attack has broken through the previously-deemed ‘unbreakable’ Kaiju wall! The category four Kaiju pushed through in less than an hour!”_

“What the hell are we building here?!” an angry voice shouts from the back of the room.

“What’s the point?!” another demands from somewhere near the office. Grunts of agreement rise up through the gathered crowd.

“That...that thing,” a voice murmurs from beside him. It’s the guy with the lunch box from earlier. “It went through the wall like it was nothin’.”

On screen, the picture changes to two men, one hip-cocked and wispy, looking expectant and slightly arrogant. Just behind him stands another, a little taller, much stockier, the very picture of determination. They’re wearing the signature suits of Jaeger pilots, all sleek rubber and heavy-duty armor plating. Around them are several soldiers, geared up and striding in tandem, escorting them across a Shatterdome hangar.

Above their heads, the reporter drones on.

_“The recently recommissioned Jaeger, the Paladin Danger, piloted by Lance and Hunk Garrett-McClain, was transferred from the sydney base to the Russian base of Vladivostok just before this latest attack. Without the help of the Jaeger program, many are feeling hopeless about the war against these titanic invaders. Many citizens are left asking: If the walls can’t protect us, who can?”_

The beginnings of an old interview play, but the sound is quickly drowned out by the characteristic beating of a helicopter’s wings as it lands on the ground just outside the giant, opened garage doors on the side of the makeshift lunchroom. Keith feels his heart sink into his ass. He knows what’s on that chopper.

He tightens his flimsy jacket and strides outside to meet it as the door opens and a staircase descends to the ground.

PPDC Marshall Iverson bends through the opening, squinting into the falling snow and trailing down the stairs. Several soldiers spill out behind him as he and Keith slowly stroll through the distance between them.

“Mister Kogane,” the Marshall drawls.

“Marshall,” Keith returns, hooking his thumbs through his belt loops. “Lookin’ sharp.”

“It’s been a while.”

“Five years, give or take.”

“Can you spare a minute?”

Keith clenches his jaw at the order disguised as a request and motions toward the garage. “Step into my office, Marshall.”

They wander inside, pushing to the back of the building where they won’t be disturbed. They reach the bank of lockers the wall rats store their extra gear in and Keith spins on a heel to face the Marshall.

“It took me a while to find you, you know,” the Marshall blithely states. “I had to expend a lot of resources to track you down.”

“Well,” Keith answers, leaning against the lockers and narrowing his eyes, “you know how it is for a man in my position. Gotta keep moving. Otherwise, I don’t make a living.”

“A man like you is worth more than the Wall, Kogane.”

Keith defiantly crosses his arms over his chest.

“Look, I know better than to think you’re here for a midday chat about the state of my life. What do you want?”

The Marshall tightens his shoulders. “I’ve got a Jaeger. Have had, actually. It’s an old one. A Mark Three. It needs a pilot.”

“And I’m assuming I’m your last choice.”

“You’re my first, actually. Every other Mark Three pilot is either dead or...out of commission.”

Keith knows which one in particular he’s speaking about being out of commission. Ignoring it, he pushes off the locker and steps up to the Marshall’s side. He shifts his weight to one leg, looking out over the garage and speaking from the side of his mouth. “Look. There’s no possibility where I can have anyone inside my head. You and I both know how that ends up. I’ll still chase it, you  _know_ I’ll chase it. I can’t keep going through that. I’m sorry.”

He stalks away, back toward where he left his pack when he was heating up his lunch. The Marshall doesn’t follow, but Keith knows it won’t be that easy. When the PPDC calls, you answer. When you’ve blocked their number and they keep calling from different numbers, you turn the ringer off and screen your calls. Keith...well, Keith just ripped the whole damn phone off of the wall. And now? Now the Corps sent their best technician out to reconnect his line. It’s unfair, really.

Keith just manages to get his line and pack back on and straightened out when the Marshall finds him again.

“Look-” Keith starts, but the Marshall doesn’t give him time to formulate an argument.

“No, _you_ look, Kogane. Here is the reality of the situation: you’re fighting a losing battle here. Spending day after day, fighting for scraps, building a wall that you and I both know doesn’t matter. You’re better than that! You’re more than that. I happen to know that you’re a stubborn son-of-a-bitch that won’t leave the world in limbo when it needs a hero. You were the best damn pilot I’d seen in years, and you’re up here in the armpit of America for what? To prove a point? You’re lying to yourself if you think that’s it.”

Keith knows that. He’s always known it. Still, the statement sends him reeling, staggering back a step.

“Haven’t you heard, Mr. Kogane? The world is coming to an end. So I ask you this: would you rather die building the Wall, or would you rather die piloting a Jaeger?”

When the PPDC sends their best technician out to reconnect your line, you don’t have much of a choice but to return their voicemails.

 

+++

 

Two days after the Holt’s disaster of an idea is presented, Shiro finds himself out on the landing deck again, waiting for the Marshall to return. His comms tablet alerted him this morning with a message that his scheduled landing would be in ten minutes, but he has yet to receive an incoming update.

Fortunately for him, there’s a break in the rain, although for how long, he can’t say. Wishing to see the sun is too tall an order for a place like this, but he eyes the gathering storm clouds with disdain, remembering just an hour ago, when he could have sworn he saw some unclouded sky passing overhead. His tablet vibrates in his hand, flashing an alert that the Marshall’s helicopter is expected to land in two minutes. Shiro looks up and passes his gaze over the horizon, eyes finally landing on the speck in the distance quickly approaching. Thunder cracks overhead. Shiro sighs. He didn’t grab an umbrella this time.

The helicopter lands, and the door drops down, revealing the Marshall at the opening, waiting to climb off. He descends the stairs with an expectant gaze, and Shiro rushes forward to meet him.

“Marshall.”

“Shirogane.”

“Were you successful?”

The commander huffs and looks smugly over his shoulder. “You tell me.”

Shiro glances in the direction of the Marshall’s sight just in time to see a lanky kid, all angles and intensity, climb down the steps, a single duffel bag slung over his shoulder. _Well, holy shit._ His eyes are a deep shade of violet. His hair is jet black and styled in a...mullet? Okay, yeah. An actual mullet. It works for him, though. He’s the kind of person that just looks a touch ethereal, if a little rough around the edges. He looks lived-in, a man who’s been places and _seen things_. He’s pretty in the way that a person who’s had to harden themselves to the world is pretty. Smooth marble expressions and a slight air of hard-won attitude. He’s attractive in general, but Shiro gets a one-off impression of who he is beneath that. Briefly, he thinks they must be similar. Shiro is very rarely ever wrong.

“ _Wow_ ,” Shiro breathes out in the Marshall’s direction, switching to Japanese. “ _So he does exist._ ”

The Marshall nods, the ghost of a smile playing around his lips.

“ _He’s, uh...he’s pretty young,_ ” Shiro continues, _“I mean, I saw his file, but-_ ”

“ _But what_?” Kogane smoothly interrupts, the same language flowing from his lips. Shiro would be embarrassed at being busted if he wasn’t so impressed. His fingers flutter nervously at his sides.

“Well, I guess I can’t use that trick on you then, huh?” he sheepishly returns in English, smiling lightly and scratching at the back of his neck.

“No. No, you can’t.”

“Alright then,” Shiro says, holding his hand out. “Officer Takashi Shirogane.”

Kogane looks at his hand, then back at his face. Back at his hand. Back at his face.

“I know who you are.”

Ah. Yes. Shiro has the tendency to forget who he is sometimes. It’s not that he’s entirely comfortable with being known as some sort of living legend, it’s just that he works so hard to bury that part of himself, to push it away just so he can rest for five minutes, that when someone else brings it back up, it still manages to take him by surprise.

“Eh-”

“And I’m 23. I’m hardly younger than you, if I remember correctly.”

He does. Although there’s a little curiosity as to why, precisely, he knows that Shiro’s only a few years older, it would seem Kogane is the only one to remember his relative youth. It’s something that follows him fairly often. He hears it in the bloated silence that trails behind him when he walks through crowds of diplomats and the frantic whispers that ripple among lines of new recruits and fresh soldiers as he cuts through the throngs. He feels it in his pulse at night, when PPDC propaganda commercials play on the television and radio. _Champion, Champion, Champion._ The nickname tears through his veins at his weakest, clawing at his insides and reminding him of everything he’s lost and everything he’s running from. A disease created for him and him alone.

He feels himself spiraling, so he balls up his flesh fist, digging his fingernails into the skin of his palm. The slight pain redirects him to the present.

“Yeah. Yeah, sorry about that. Your file is just very…”

“Very what? Thick? Full of bullshit? _Scary_?”

“Impressive, actually. Even without it for reference, I’d know who you are. _I’m_ not the only one with a reputation out there. Your name has its own mettle around places like this.”

Kogane seems shocked. His cheeks go slightly pink and his eyebrows furrow in confusion. So it would seem Shiro’s not the only one who can forget himself.

“Yes, well,” the Marshall interrupts them. “As much as I would love to stand here and listen to you two compliment each other all day, we do have an operation to see to. Let’s get moving.”

Shiro and Keith follow the Marshall inside, Shiro updating him on the status of the base as they go.

“Hunk and Lance are on deck for the projected upcoming event and the Danger’s been tuned up in preparation.”

“Good.”

“Mhm. The rest of the recruits have been hitting the gym and brushing up on their sparring techniques for the past day, and Mr. Holt has finished preparing the Kwoon, so it’s ready to go for the week.”

At the mention of the dynamic Fightmaster, the Marshall’s shoulders raise up to damn near his ears.

“And have his children mentioned…?”

“Ah, no sir. No mention of their idea since you left.”

“Good, good.”

“Also, Coran and Allura have requested to speak with you when you have a chance. They have an upgrade they’d like to try on The Castle, and they’d like to request clearance.”

“Another one?”

Shiro laughs. “I know, but this one actually sounds pretty interesting. It involves wings.”

The commander closes his eyes for a moment before answering. “Of course it does. Well then, I’ll see to that. Get Kogane acquainted with the base and debriefed for tomorrow.”

“Sir.”

The Marshall strides away down the hall, and Shiro watches after him for a beat.

“You two seem pretty familiar for a Marshall and subordinate,” Keith observes from beside him, startling him out of the mental checklist he was filing away.

“Yeah. I get that a lot. The Marshall was there when I lost-when I went through a difficult time.”

His metal arm flexes at his side.

“You mean when you went down in that fight.”

Shiro looks up. This kid (because no matter what, he’s still very green to this world), he really seems to have a talent for cutting right to the quick, whether intentionally or not. Shiro doesn’t talk about this. He barely wants to discuss it in his mandatory therapy sessions, and he certainly doesn’t want to casually chat about it in some random hallway with a guy he literally just met. It doesn’t matter that Shiro thinks they might identify with each other in some aspect.

Keith regards him with a cool detachment, a slight crinkle between his eyebrows. It seems permanent at this point. Shiro wonders what it would take to smooth it out. He clears his throat. “We just have a lot of respect for each other, okay?”

They stare at each other, sizing the other up, until Kogane seems to come to a conclusion. His face smooths out, relaxing just enough to signal his acceptance.

“Yeah, okay. I get that.”

“Great!” Shiro exclaims, possibly a little manic and definitely a little too loud. “Let’s get on with the tour, shall we?”

 

+++

 

The doors to the hangar slide open and Lance turns his attention around just in time to hear Shiro say, “Welcome to the Shatterdome, Keith Kogane.”

A sharp inhale sounds from just behind him, followed by the clatter of metal hitting the ground. Lance glances back over his shoulder, where he spots Hunk looking the same way, hands frozen in place and mouth hanging ajar. He huffs softly under his breath and traipses back to his husband.

“Better shut that mouth, babe,” he says, gently pushing Hunk’s chin up with the tips of his fingers. “You’ll either catch flies or make me jealous. Maybe both? Could be both.”

Hunk comes back to himself in an instant, throwing an arm around Lance’s waist and tugging him close, pressing a kiss to his temple.

“Lance, I would _never_. But just. Did you hear that? Did you hear  _that name_?!”

Lance smiles up at him. One of his favorite things about Hunk has always been the fact that he so easily fanboys over everything possible. His nickname is well-earned, really. He’s a big, softly buff, gorgeous dude. He can bench press Lance. He _has_ bench pressed Lance. But in the face of anything he finds interesting or fascinating, he loses his mind and goes all tail-wagging-puppy-dog excitement at the very concept of being near it.

Keith Kogane is one such anything. They all know the story. Genius piloting student, top of his class in his academy, fast track to be the new poster boy for the Jaeger program (rip, Shiro). Then, something happened. Nobody knows _what_ exactly, but it was a tragedy for him. He stopped being able to practice in the sims. He couldn’t attempt an observational drift without chasing the RABIT and wrecking the room. He grew a temper. His grades slipped. He left. Just up and disappeared, ghost like Swayze.

But now, here he is. Standing in the entry of the hangar looking mighty out of place and nigh uncomfortable. Suddenly, Lance realizes why. The Shatterdome is nothing more than a glorified garage. A big-ass, hella expensive, extremely impressive garage, but a garage nonetheless. Garages come with noise. Power tools, welders, grinders, paint sprayers, the very machines they work on. Not to mention the yelling and overhead announcements counting up the time since the last Kaiju event occurred. Only now, it’s dead silent. If he had a pin and a slightly less sure grip, Lance is fairly certain he could hear it drop.

Hunk nudges him in the side as he passes by.

“I’m gonna go say hi.”

Lance tries to reach out and stop him, but he just misses grabbing him by the collar. “Baby, maybe don’t do that.”

“Too late!” Hunk calls over his shoulder, excitedly walking over. “I’m doing that! Come with me so I don’t say anything stupid!”

Lance claps a hand over his eyes, but follows after him anyway.

They sidle forward to meet the new arrivals and Shiro smiles their way. With all of his usual grace and panache (that is to say, rolling up onto the scene very much like an elephant on roller skates - all over the place and very unbothered by his surroundings), Hunk thrusts his hand out, inches from Keith’s chest.

“I’ve heard a lot about you!”

And just like that, the spell cast on the Shatterdome is broken. The noise starts back up again, albeit quieter than normal. Shiro stands by, amusedly watching Keith size up the hand invading his personal space. He looks like he wants to say something, but he remains quiet.

Lance strolls up next to Hunk, gently pushing his hand back down and away from Keith’s narrow-ass bird chest.

“Heya. I’m Lance, and this is Hunk.”

“I know who you are. You pilot the Danger.”

Lance beams, his smile pulling ear-to-ear. “That’s us! But of course you know all about us!”

“Not entirely. I saw you on tv yesterday, that’s how I know who you are.”

Lance’s smile droops a little. “What do you mean that’s how you know?! You didn’t already know who we are?!”

“Sorry, no. I’ve been pretty preoccupied out there.”

Hunk snickers from Lance’s side. Shiro’s eyes sparkle a little bit.

“Not everyone knows who the Jaeger pilots are, Lance.”

Feeling affronted, he clasps a hand to his chest.

“You _should_ know! Isn’t that what you’re here to be? Are we gonna have to be enemies now?!”

Keith just shrugs his shoulders, throwing a stormy look over at Shiro. Shiro averts his eyes and clears his throat.

“Maybe. We’ll see how he does in the Kwoon.”

“I’ve seen his file. He’ll do great,” Hunk chirps, then smothers his mouth after realizing what he’s just said.

“You’ve seen my file?” Keith rounds on a very surprised looking Shiro. “I thought those were supposed to be confidential! Why do I even still _have_ a file?! I went off-grid!”

“I’m really sorry, Keith. I have no idea how these two would have seen it,” the statement ends in just enough of a lilt for it to qualify as a question. Shiro’s eyebrows are sternly drawn in their direction, and Lance immediately throws his hands up under their full force.

“Hey man, for once, this wasn’t on me at all.”

“Yeah, that one was all mine, I’m afraid,” Hunk confirms, his fingers anxiously dancing in front of his chest. “Pidge always digs up the new recruits and shows me their files. I, uh. I’m sorry, buddy.”

Hunk, to his credit, looks well and truly mortified. That’s another thing Lance loves about him. He feels his emotions in the purest way possible. If it were Lance in this position, he knows that he would never apologize. When a man wants deets, a man wants deets. Simple as that. And really, he decides, Keith deserves it.

“Speaking of Katie,” Shiro pipes up before Keith can answer. “I think it’s time I showed you the lab, Kogane. Boys. Stay out of trouble.”

Shiro levels them with another soul-withering look, and Lance snaps to attention, throwing out a jaunty salute.

“YESSIR, OFFICER SHIROGANE, SIR.”

Shiro snorts and sweeps from the room, trailing a very harried-looking Keith behind him.

“Well, that could have gone better,” Hunk sighs. Lance looks over at his husband incredulously.

“I can’t believe he’d never heard of us before! We’re definitely enemies now.”

“Babe, it’s really not that serious,” Hunk soothes.

“ _Mortal enemies_ ,” Lance hisses.

 

+++

 

Matt is elbow deep in a Knifehead thorax, showing Katie one of its organs and whining.

“Well, Katie, I don’t know if this would be enough.”

“Yeah, okay, but I don’t know anyone that could really help us beyond that. I’ve sent messages to the other bases, but I feel like the Marshall already decided to head us off at the pass. I’ve gotten no’s all the way down.”

“I mean, these aren’t even the pieces we really _need_.”

“Okay, I get that, but if we can get a lab to send us some samples, we send some back, build a better rapport, then maybe we can-”

“Maybe you can what?” a deep timbre resonates from the doorway. Katie and Matt both withdraw their hands from the carcass and spin around, meeting Shiro’s unimpressed stare. His hands are dad-crossed over his chest. _Busted_. “Maybe you can _what_ , Pidge?”

“Maaayyyybe we can...build a better sample database! Yeah! We were just talking about how we could create better Kaiju profiles if we had more data, and what better way to have more data than to get other bases to send us samples!”

Matt nods his head furiously. “Yes! That! That is definitely what we were talking about, _for sure_.”

Shiro fully steps into the room, arms still crossed, face still impassive.

“You’re lying to me.”

“Shiro,” Katie answers. “Would we lie to you?”

Shiro looks at her for less than a second and narrows his eyes. Yes. Yes, of course they would lie to him. He knows it. She knows it. Matt knows it. Every religion’s deity knows it.

“You’re still trying to do it!” Shiro concludes.

“Shiro, no!” Matt exclaims, stepping forward with his hands up, trying to diffuse the situation. “We just want-”

“You just want to drift with a damn Kaiju after you were _specifically_ told no!”

“...You wanna _drift with a Kaiju?!_ ” another voice pipes up from the entry of the room. Katie looks over toward the source and gasps when her eyes land on none other than Keith “perma-scowl” Kogane.

“ _Keith?_ ”

He looks at her for a moment, until his eyes register recognition. “Katie Holt.”

“Yes, Katie Holt, you friggin’ jerk! How long has it been?! I thought you died! EVERYONE THOUGHT YOU DIED, YOU ASSHOLE!”

He looks down at his body, pats his legs and torso a bit, and then looks back up. “Well, I’m feeling very much alive at the moment.”

“I can’t believe this. I thought you coming back was a rumor. A clerical mistake or something.”

“Um, Katie?” Matt asks sheepishly. “Care to explain?”

Sighing, Katie steps toward Keith. “This is Keith. Remember, Academy Keith? Really good at flying, terrible at people-ing? Went a little bonkers then took off into the night like the goddamn Batman?”

“Oh!” Matt’s face alights in understanding. “The prodigy!”

Keith’s face curls up in a scowl. “I’m no prodigy.”

“That’s not what I hear!” Matt argues. “I hear you were a demon behind the controls! I also know you hold sim records that kids are _still_ trying to break!”

“Either way, it’s irrelevant.” Keith dismisses, blandly waving his hand. “That’s history.”

“Ehhh, I wouldn’t say that,” Shiro says. “You _are_ here to be a Ranger, after all.”

“I don’t know that that’ll be happening. You’ve seen my super secret file, after all.”

“Oh yes, speaking of super secret files,” Shiro drawls, turning a judgmental eye on Katie. “What’s this I hear about you getting a hold of every new recruit’s information?”

Matt stifles a laugh.

“Shut up, Matt,” Katie hisses at him. “It’s not like you don’t help me.”

Shiro’s razor-sharp gaze snaps to Matt and he quickly retreats to a book-covered table. Of course. She loves her big brother, she really does. But damn if he doesn’t let her take the blame for things a lot. Sure, he’s literally punched people for her before (not that she really needed it, she can take Lance in hand to hand), but man. Let Shiro get a little pissy and Matt is _gone_.

“Look, Shiro,” she starts, “I don’t do it to pry or anything. I just wanna see if there’s any promising ones in the group.”

“You can see that when they arrive on base.”

“Yeah, but if I see it ahead of time, then I know who to bet on when we go into the Kwoon.”

“KATIE HOLT.”

“Alright, alright,” she relents, wincing at the use of her full name. “I won’t do it for profit anymore.”

“You won’t do it _at all!_ ” Shiro shrieks in exasperation.

“How do you get the files anyway? Aren’t they encrypted or something? Is there no protection on this shit around here?” Keith asks, looking equal parts extremely irritated and extremely interested. Katie remembers now why she liked him back in school. He didn’t care about the rules so much, he just wanted to _know_. She quirks a conspiratorial eyebrow.

“Encryption means nothing to me.”

“Alright, Neo,” Shiro interjects. “Please stop hacking the matrix.”

“Oh my god, Shiro. Please never say anything like that ever again.”

Keith wanders off into the depths of the lab, looking at Kaiju parts as he goes.

“Katie, seriously. Please stop pulling files.”

She sighs. “Alright, party pooper.”

“Hey guys?” Keith calls from the back of the room. “What’s with the math?”

Katie lights up, running toward the chalkboards and rubbing her hands together.

“That, dear prodigy, is breach math.”

“Breach math,” he intones, completely unimpressed.

“ _Breach math_. It’s how I calculate when the next event will occur!”

“I see. Follow up question: why do you have so many Kaiju parts around the room?”

“Ah!” Matt calls from his desk. “Those are so we can study and understand them. We wanna know everything there is to know about these little guys!”

“Little guys? You sound like Kaiju groupies.”

Shiro snorts. Katie ignores him.

“We’re not groupies,” Matt huffs. “We just find them interesting to study. For instance, the Yamarashi Shiro has a tattoo of-”

Keith whips his head over at Shiro, looking him up and down. Shiro turns pink under his gaze, but his expression shifts into blankness. “It’s, uh. It’s not where you can see it. And it’s not important.”

Matt continues, “It _is_ important, though. What you did-”

“I said it’s _not important_ , Matt.” Shiro cuts him off with finality. Matt deflates instantly.

“Okay, fine. Look, we know this war needs to end. But while it’s happening, we just want to find out everything we can about the Kaiju. I’d love to see a live one up close some day.”

Keith looks at Matt like he’s grown a second head. He opens his mouth to say something, but the breach alarm goes off, squealing out a high pitched warning and lighting up the room with its trademark orange flashers. Shiro grabs Keith by the bicep. Katie looks at her watch. Admittedly, she’d forgotten that she had projected the event for today, but now that she remembers, it looks like it’s right on time. Numbers don’t lie.

“That’s the breach alarm,” Shiro explains to Keith. “A Kaiju event is happening. We need to go to the Shatterdome.”

He tugs him toward the door, but on their way past, Keith looks over at Katie and Matt, then around at the various organs they have laying on tables and floating in tanks.

“Trust me guys, you don’t want to see one up close.”

 

+++

 

Lance has just finished up in the gym when the breach alarm blares overhead. Hunk is off in the library, but Lance knows he can count on him to meet him where it counts, so he doesn’t wait, he just runs off to the Drivesuit room to get prepped. On the way, he runs into Shiro, Keith trailing along beside him.

“Hey fellas! Coming to see the show?”

“Something like that,” Shiro says with some amusement, keeping pace beside Lance. “I wanted Kogane here to see a launch.”

“Well, _Kogane_ , get ready to remember who I am!”

He throws a wink in Keith’s direction and scampers off again, jogging up to the Conn-Pod launch platform. He skids inside at the exact moment Hunk arrives. They flash each other a smile and spin around so their respective techs can help them suit up.

Their suits are applied, and together, they step forward toward the Paladin Danger’s Conn-Pod dock. Just before they enter, a new set of techs rushes forward to add the finishing touch: the Spinal Clamps. Their suits come to life, clicking into place and tightening around their bodies where protection and contact is needed the most. The screens of their helmets fill with the relay gel that will allow their neural impulses to transfer to their Jaeger, blurring the world out into smeared golden shadows. The gel drains down to lube the contact points in their suits, and they are declared officially ready to pilot.

Once their Drivesuits’ initial functions are complete, they each take a deep breath and step inside their Conn-Pod. If he weren’t allowed to argue that it was being snuggled up under Hunk’s warm arm, then this is where Lance would say he feels like he truly belongs. The hum of the machinery, the satisfying start-up of the pilot interface as the Drivesuits are hooked into their harnesses and the circuit is completed, the flash of the HUDs appearing before them, the _Drift_. It’s all so dear to him.

The first time he and Hunk ever drifted, it was like a coming home. The warm, fuzzy murkiness of dropping into his own memories threw him off at first, even though he knew to expect it. He knew the places, the events, the people, but he was watching it from outside of himself. He was watching it with interest. He was watching it with overwhelming love. In that exact moment, he realized that he was watching it all through his husband’s eyes. Not even that, really. They were watching it at the same time, feeling each other’s feelings layered over top of each other. Hunk was feeling his nostalgia while he was feeling Hunk’s devotion. The joy he felt sifting through Hunk’s mind in return was indescribable.

They were already married at the time, but if there was any other proof Lance needed that they were basically soulmates, their first drift was it. They were in each other’s heads, but it wasn’t oppressive like he thought it would be. It was warm, it was encouraging, it was familiar. It was beautiful. Bumping up against the full power of each other’s emotions and melding into one was a gift he knew so many others would kill for.

They could speak without speaking, they could predict each other’s thoughts and debate effortlessly, they could make split-second decisions and carry them out with military precision, and nobody listening in would ever be any the wiser. It was a heady sort of power that he couldn’t reconcile for some time once he stepped away from his harness. It took Hunk, as per usual, to help him slot the experience into place.

Lance takes his customary place on the left, his boots auto-locking into his motion rig while Hunk mirrors the process on the pilot’s side on the right. It’s something about them that often shocks those they meet. With their personalities, people tend to expect that Lance would be on the dominant side, but it just works best with Hunk’s calm presence, steady in command and steely in resolve.

Their technicians swing behind them and fasten their feedback cradles.

“Good morning, lovebirds,” the steady voice of Shay, their Neural Bridge Operator greets them.

Lance smiles and pushes his comms button. “Shay! How are you today, my beautiful peach?!”

“Lance!” she laughs. “A little lonely, since you’re the only Jaeger in town today. How are you, my gorgeous little dumpling?”

Hunk pushes his button, too. “Don’t encourage him, please. I can’t deal with it today.”

“Only because you asked so nicely, Hunk-ules!”

They hear murmured voices in the background.

“Alright, boys!” Shay chirps. “Marshall Iverson on deck! Prepare to drop!”

Their technicians exit the Conn-Pod, closing and securing the hatch behind them.

“Ready for drop!” Lance and Hunk shout in unison.

All at once, the supporting mechanism releases, and their Pod falls through the platform shaft, landing gently in the cradle atop the shoulders of their Jaeger’s body, seams sealing and final connections clicking into place.

“Pod-link confirmed,” Shay narrates from the control room. “Engaging pilot-to-pilot sequence!”

The robotic voice of their Pod’s operating system intones from overhead.

_“Pilot-to-pilot connection protocol sequence engaged.”_

The last bits of scaffolding break away from the outside of their Jaeger, its nuclear engine roaring to life beneath them at the center of its body. Their Jaeger is wheeled outside through the giant hangar doors of the Shatterdome, and they’re immediately met by an escort of three PPDC helicopters buzzing around the head of their machine long enough to get them wheeled out into the water.

Their comms come to life again. “Fellas, this is Marshall Iverson, prepare for neural handshake.”

“Starting in fifteen seconds!” Shay begins the count. “Fourteen...thirteen...twelve...eleven…”

Her voice fades into the background as Hunk looks over at Lance one last time.

“You ready for this, baby?”

It’s not necessary, but sometimes they still like to talk out loud to each other right before the drift engages. It provides an anchor point in a generally fantastical experience.

“With you? Always,” he replies, smile laced over the words. They face forward once more just in time for the robotic voice to speak again.

_“Neural handshake initiated.”_

Lance’s eyes flutter shut as the familiar visions of sped up memories fly through his consciousness. He swims through bubbly blue depths, spotting his own neurons flashing in time with Hunk’s. Their thoughts pull together in the strange voice that’s not totally his and not totally Hunk’s, but recognizable as _them_ all the same. Just as quickly as the rush of memories begins, it ends with a small jerk of their bodies, and there they are, connected as one. Him and Hunk and Paladin Danger.

_“Two pilots engaged in neural bridge.”_

“Neural handshake strong and holding!” Shay announces through the speakers. “We got ourselves a drift, y’all!”

Lance places his hand in his hand controls, lifting the cradle in front of himself.

“Left hemisphere, calibrated!” he announces.

“Right hemisphere, calibrated!” Hunk returns.

They both lift their arms up in a boxer’s stance, movements perfectly mirrored. They punch their hands together, the motion echoed outside by the giant hands of the Jaeger they’re harnessed into. In front of them, their HUD flashes with the message **CALIBRATION COMPLETED**.

“Gentlemen,” the Marshall speaks, “your orders are to hold the miracle mile off Vladivostok, do you copy?”

“Copy!” they yell in tandem.

“Good luck out there, boys!” Shay calls over the speakers, and then they drop into silence.

They glance down to the SONAR display on their HUD, a large flashing dot indicating the Kaiju’s location beaming back at them. It’s not too far off, maybe a mile and a half or so, and it’s moving quickly toward shore. They silently confirm their plan through the drift and get going.

They move in tandem in their harnesses, left foot, right foot, left foot, right foot, until their Jaeger is all but sprinting through the ocean toward their latest foe. The steady voice of their OS keeps constant narration of their status.

_“Category IV Kaiju in striking radius; Identity confirmed as: Mutavore.”_

They come to a stop, just in time for the Kaiju’s mammoth, ugly head to break over the surface of the water. Its whole face looks like the blade of an axe, one smooth curve extending from its chin clear back to nearly touch its own spine. Like a weird alien mohawk made out of weird alien bone. _It’s weird._ It rises to its full height, and at once they both realize that it has a slight height advantage over their Jaeger. They stand at 260 feet tall, so that’s no small feat. It is, however, a complication, as far as kicking it’s ass and getting the hell out of dodge goes.

_“Kaiju analysis complete. Approximate height: 290 feet. Slow moving. Weak points: back and limbs.”_

Lance and Hunk snort together through the drift, of course those are the weak points. Those are _always_ the weak points.

The Kaiju advances on them, and through the bond they silently agree to play it safe and take this one from a distance. Mutavore seems to disagree. All at once, the Kaiju charges straight for them, clawed arms outstretched to take them down. In tandem, Lance and Hunk huff through the connection and neatly sidestep the Kaiju’s attack, catching it around the neck with one long arm and slamming it down on its back in the water.

Enraged, the Kaiju makes to get back up and charge again, but before it gets a proper chance, Hunk draws back his arm, and throws the Danger’s right fist into its head in a crippling hook. Lance follows suit with the left, catching the Kaiju on the jaw before it has a chance to recoil from Hunk’s initial blow. They both work together to lift the left foot of their Jaeger to deliver a finishing stomp to the Mutavore’s head, but it manages to whip around with its tail, knocking them off balance and sending the Danger stumbling back a few steps.

The Kaiju stands and hurtles forward to them again, but this time, they’re ready. They spread their Jaeger’s legs, drop low in a bracing crouch, and throw their hands up in a boxer’s stance. They wait until the time is just right, allowing the Kaiju in closer and closer still, until finally, it’s damn near on top of them. They inhale as the Kaiju lifts a foot to take a step. They exhale as the Kaiju rears back an arm to deal a powerhouse blow. In the space between, Lance engages the warm-up sequence for their secret weapon: their long-range chest missiles. While he focuses on that, Hunk hauls off and delivers an uppercut straight to the Kaiju’s chin, knocking it clean up into the air, like some sort of crazy-ass cartoon Lance used to watch when he was a kid. If he wasn’t so focused on deploying the missiles, he’d take a few seconds to just...admire the general splendor.

Instead, he reaches out toward their HUD, and taps the **LAUNCH MISSILES** button, sending four long-range Stunner missiles burrowing into the Kaiju’s chest.

_This one’s gonna be a bitch to clean up_ , he thinks through the drift.

Hunk snorts in response as they take a step back and wait. _Then I guess we better not mess around with gloating, huh?_

_Who do you think I_ **_am_** _, babe? I’m definitely gloating._

As soon as the thought finishes, the missiles embedded in the Kaiju explode in a fantastic shower of sparks and deadly, blue, acidic blood. The Mutavore stumbles around briefly, swaying side to side, before finally going down, face first into the water.

_Face first_ , Lance complains, _why do they always gotta fall face first?!_

_Just to ruin your day, I’m afraid_ , Hunk replies, smacking the command on their HUD to engage clean up mode.

_“Kaiju Blue clean-up mode engaged.”_

“Good job, gentlemen,” Marshall Iverson’s voice rings out overhead. “Clean up that Blue and get back to base!”

“Yes, it _was_ a good job, wasn’t it sir?” Lance replies, doing his best to sound as smug and smarmy as possible.

Hunk groans beside him.

“Clean that Blue up and get your asses back to base now, or I’ll have you clean your own machine when you get back.”

Lance wheezes into the comms unit, remembering the last time they had to clean the Danger on their own. He still has war flashbacks whenever he sees a can of car wax.

“Yes, sir,” Hunk answers for him.

The good thing is, Hunk always thinks ahead, and by the time the conversation is over, their systems have already contained the alien blood seeping into the ocean below, and nearly vacuumed up all evidence of their fight. All they need to do is gather the nets and head back home.

Once they arrive, the two of them tumble out of their Jaeger, exhausted and starving. They strip their Drivesuits as quickly as humanly possible and make a beeline for the cafeteria. Walking in, they’re greeted with the usual shouts and cheers, which they take most humbly, thankyouverymuch.

Lance spots Keith and Shiro sitting at a table and talking, so he nudges Hunk in the side.

“Baby, go sit down with them. I’ll get us some grub.”

“Are you sure? I can handle it myself…”

“It’s alright, I know how tired you get.”

Hunk flashes him a small smile and squeezes his hand before taking off to sit. Lance scoops them up a couple trays of the day’s rations and weaves his way through the room to join them at the table.

“-so then I told him that there was no way possible I could have a rat in my room, since the only rat I was aware of was standing in front of me!”

Keith and Shiro crack up at the end of Hunk’s story that Lance has absolutely, positively _not_ heard a hundred times, oh no. He plops down, sliding the smiling man his tray and a water bottle, and turning his attention to the other two.

“Well, boys? You like the show?”

Shiro smiles. “You did a great job out there. I’m proud of you.”

Hunk lights up like a goddamn Christmas tree and sets his fork down.

“Shiro, thank you so much! That means a lot.”

Lance rolls his eyes. “What about you, mullet?”

Keith glares across the table. “It’s not a mullet.”

“No, it’s definitely a mullet. Either way, I asked a question.”

“You were good.”

“Ringing praise,” Lance deadpans.

Hunk clears his throat and elbows Lance in the side.

“Alright, alright,” Lance relents. “A better question! What do you think about ol’ Shiro here?”

Keith eyebrows knit together. Shiro looks murderous.

“I don’t understand,” Keith says.

“Well, I just mean you two have been together all day. That’s enough to form an opinion, isn’t it?” Lance wiggles his eyebrows for effect and Shiro looks like he’d rather be dead than here. But Lance has a hunch. He’s seen them give each other a few sly looks already, like they’re speaking without speaking. They’re very much like the looks he and Hunk give each other. He’s a curious boy. He needs to know.

“Well,” Keith says, “He’s interesting. He’s a legend. Everyone looks up to him, really. Including me.”

Everyone whips around to face Keith.

“What?” he asks defensively. “It’s true…”

Lance can’t believe his luck. He cackles across the table, straight up old witch in the woods standing over her cauldron style.

“A LITTLE HERO WORSHIP, HUH?!” he crows.

“Guys, I’m right here,” Shiro says. If Lance didn’t know better, he’d say it was a whine. But Shiro doesn’t whine. At least, not that Lance knows of. “Anyway, I think we’re done for the day. Keith, let me take you to the sleeping quarters.”

“OH HO!”

Shiro shoots Lance a glare and ushers Keith from the hall, leaving Hunk to stare at Lance exasperatedly.

“Lance, babe. You gotta stop doing this.”

“Can’t stop, won’t stop, my beautiful, glorious beloved.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> shay is me screaming y'all and encouraging bad behavior


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> a wager is placed, a spar is had, disappointment is palpable

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i love this chapter dearly.

_“Whether two pilots are "Drift Compatible" with one another, depends largely on their personal connection and their ability to work in sync with each other. Compatibility is commonly determined through sparring in areas like the Kwoon Combat Room. Drift compatibility is potential that exists between two people, however, it is not predetermined by the relationship (or lack thereof) of the compatible persons._

_...In an active neural handshake, the melded subconscious of the Jaeger pilots creates a “Headspace" where two minds communicate. Communication is said to feel literal, abstract, subliminal or conversational, depending on the persons involved. Each crew unconsciously negotiates its own consensus expression. Communication through Headspace is said to be quicker than verbal communication; sophisticated deliberations can often play out in a matter of seconds rather than moments.”_

_-[PPDC Ranger Training Manual](http://pacificrim.wikia.com/wiki/Drift) _

 

+++

 

Insistent banging at his door tugs Keith out of the violet haze of sleep he managed to fall into only - he checks the clock - five hours prior. Cursing whoever is on the other side, he rolls out of bed and trudges over, unlocking the deadbolt. As soon as the pin slides away from its channel, the door slides open and Officer Shirogane strides in like he owns the place, all neat uniform and perfectly styled hair.

Until he spots Keith standing in the middle of the room, arms crossed, hip cocked, wearing nothing but the boxer briefs he went to sleep in early that morning. As soon as he glances Keith in all his (admittedly sleep-rumpled and completely unprepared for human interaction) glory, Shirogane turns pink and averts his gaze. _Cute_ , Keith thinks, and then catches himself. _Wait, what the fuck, Kogane?_

“Good morning to you, too,” he deadpans, and hopes that nothing shows on his face.

Officer Shirogane clears his throat and spins around to face the room’s entrance.

“Clothes, _please_ ,” he begs, voice a little strangled.

“You’re the one that burst into my room with no invitation,” Keith points out. They both know it’s true. Shirogane can’t be upset with him over this. He grabs a white t-shirt from the floor and tugs it over his head.

“Fair point, but still. You have a long day ahead of you. Dress for sparring and meet us down in the Kwoon in fifteen.”

Keith snorts and walks over to his bag to pull out some training pants.

“Sir, yes, _sir_ ,” he drawls sarcastically. A sharp noise that _has_ to have come from Shirogane, but which Keith refuses to believe actually _did_ come from Shirogane draws his attention to his back.

Shirogane’s shoulders tighten. His hands curl up slightly at his sides. He sucks in a few deep breaths. Finally, after whatever mini-crisis he goes through ends, he drops a glance at Keith over his shoulder just as he finishes tugging his pants on.

“Everyone else received their briefings when they arrived earlier this week. Since you were a...special case, I’ve been asked to brief you now.”

Keith grabs an apple from his counter and takes a big bite. Some juice runs down his chin, and he wipes it away distractedly as he goes to sit down at the small metal table in the counter-called-kitchen of his room. Once he’s arranged, he glances back up at Shirogane only to catch him looking at him peculiarly.

He waits a few seconds, until it seems like he won’t be getting anything else before he clears his throat. “Well? I’m listening.”

Shirogane shakes his head a bit. “Oh, of course, sorry, I drifted off there for a second. So, the other recruits you’ll be meeting down on the mats won’t be quite as...advanced as you. I’m not saying this as a compliment, but you are the most experienced candidate in this pool. You’ll need to keep that in mind when sparring the other recruits today.”

“Dial it back, got it,” Keith lazily confirms, taking another bite of his apple. Officer Shirogane follows the trail of the apple from the end of his arm to his mouth.

“That’s not what I meant,” he says slowly. “I mean that you need to ensure that you’re adjusting the course of your actions in order to give the process the best chance possible of working.”

“So, just to confirm: I’m the most experienced person here, so I need to allow for the gap in abilities between myself and the other recruits.”

Shirogane nods enthusiastically. “Precisely.”

“By adjusting my style in order for them to be able to keep up with what I’m doing.”

His enthusiasm fades a bit, but Shirogane still affirms, “...Yes.”

He takes another bite.

“So dial it back. Got it.”

Officer Shirogane’s face darkens. It’s strange, like a storm cloud gathering on the horizon in the middle of a bright, sunshiney day. It’s sudden and foreboding. Keith finds himself reeling back a little at the change.

Shirogane walks forward, Keith’s personal flash of lightning, plucking the apple out of his grasp and tossing it in the trash can across the room.

“Hey, I wasn’t done wi-”

“You are now,” Shirogane interrupts him. “Listen to me. I know your records. I know your history. I know your scores, and your intelligence, and your evaluations. They’re impressive enough, I guess. But do you know what I find _more_ impressive?”

Keith really, really wants to know. He can’t help it, but he really does want to impress the man. He’s a legend. He’s been through a lot. Keith respects the hell out of him, based on his reputation alone. But in the brief time he’s known him (the briefest of time; can you even count 12 hours as a real period of time?), his respect has grown to an embarrassing degree. He’s kind to everyone he interacts with, protective of those he cares about, highly respected by all who know him. He’s bright and beautiful and not at all what Keith would expect. Keith isn’t entirely sure how someone who went through what he did can manage all that. He desperately wants to find out. He nods carefully.

“What I find _more_ impressive, Kogane,” Shirogane grits out, “is someone who can take their history and work with it. Someone who can analyze the best way to approach a situation and take that route, even if it isn’t the best route for _them_. The world wants heroes, Keith Kogane. What they get instead are people. We have to be the best kind of people they can get.”

Damn, that’s a good speech. He knows it, too. Shirogane straightens himself up to his full, impressive height.

“It’s time for you to prove that you’re worth that big reputation you’ve got floating around out there, Keith.”

Well, _fuck_. Keith thinks he might be a little bit in love with this guy.

“See you in the Kwoon,” Shirogane says with finality, and stalks from the room. Keith watches him go and suddenly it hits him that the man is a bit of a conundrum.

He’s approachable enough and genuinely a nice guy, but there’s a slight darkness rippling beneath the surface. Keith knows, of course, about the famous battle that took his drift partner and arm all in one go. Everyone knows about that battle. Even if they didn’t, the man’s prosthetic arm, scarred nose, and trauma bleached hair would tell enough of a story to understand. Takashi Shirogane should be dead. It’s a tale recorded in prose written all over the parchment of his body, his own scar tissue the ink. The difference between knowing about a man touched by tragedy and _meeting_ a man touched by tragedy is always stark. At least they have that in common. Not that crippling loss should really be the starting point for any relationship.

Although, the more he ruminates, the more curious Keith finds himself. Yeah, Shirogane is correct about taking your history and working with it, but then why hasn’t he gotten back in a Jaeger himself? He seems more than fit enough. From what Keith has observed, he seems to be more of the base-mother or the Marshall’s errand-boy than anything else. It’s a little confusing, and more than a mixed message.

With that train of thought swirling through his mind, Keith flips off the lights and heads down the hall toward the Kwoon.

A sudden thought has him stopping in his tracks for a second.

_He called me Keith._

 

+++

 

Katie is looking over her bank account when the Garrett-McClains walk into the lab, bickering.

“No,” Lance hisses, “I _told_ you that the only way you would get what you want is if _I_ could get what I want in return!”

“Well,” Hunk shoots back, “we both know that’s not going to happen until the war is over!”

“Baby, you know we both deserve it!”

“Well, I know a few thousand pounds of alien dinosaur monster that would argue with that!”

“Wow,” Katie interrupts, “If I didn’t know any better, I’d say it was you two who were sparring today.”

Hunk and Lance immediately stop arguing, looking her way.

“Pidge!” Lance demands, stomping forward. “Tell him we deserve a vacation!”

Katie snorts. “Don’t we all?”

She knows for a fact that she’d really, _really_ like a vacation. Maybe she can convince Matt and their dad to go on one when all this is over...

Matt pops his head up from under the table he was working below. “AGREED.”

“ _Speaking of sparring_ ,” Hunk says with fervor, subtly begging for a distraction, “what are we thinking about today?”

Katie grins, gesturing for Matt to grab their Kwoon notebook. He smiles back and plucks it from his desk, tossing it to her from across the room. She deftly snatches it from the air. “Thanks, table boy.”

“You’re welcome, kiddo. Please, continue,” he says, rolling his eyes fondly and gesturing toward the book.

“Well,” she starts, flipping to the relevant page, “I’ve been keeping an eye on the recruits while they trained the past couple of days, and I combined my observations with all of their files…”

“I helped,” Matt says brightly.

“He did,” Katie confirms.

“Fantastic,” Lance deadpans.

“So what’re you thinkin’, Pidge?” Hunk asks, peering over her shoulder to peek at the notebook. She snaps it closed before he can see anything specific.

“We’ve got a hundred on Keith ending up in Black after two rounds.”

“Tw-TWO ROUNDS?!” Lance shouts. “That’s impossible! Even me and Hunk had to go for three!”

“Numbers don’t lie, Lancey Lance. I did the math.”

“I. Helped.” Matt reiterates.

“He did,” Katie confirms again. “Sorry, Matty.”

“Apology accepted,” he says, and disappears under the table again.

“Who do you think his co-pilot’ll end up being?” Hunk asks, and immediately Lance refocuses.

“Oh boy, you’re gonna love this one!” Matt calls from under the table. “I _didn’t_ help with this one.”

“He won’t have one.”

Lance screeches an inhuman sound and Hunk pats his back, looking at Katie incredulously.

“Pidge, you know that’s impossible.”

“Hmmm, maybe in the past, it was,” she acknowledges. “But I know the boys in the tech department. Black is wildly outdated, you know. They’ve been working on ideas to bring her back up to standard.”

“And one of their ideas is to literally murder a guy?!” Hunk exclaims.

“Well, not exactl-”

“Pidge,” Hunk interrupts. “You know just as well as we do that no single person can handle a neural load like that on their own. It would melt his brain. There’s literally no way to pilot a Jaeger alone!”

“Currently,” Matt says from under the table. “They do have some interesting ideas down there.”

“Well, as wonderful and not-at-all harebrained as this scheme sounds,” Lance says, “I’m going to have to counter that bet.”

Hunk looks over at his husband, smiling like he just struck the richest vein of gold in them thar hills after a three month journey across the Oregon trail.

“And what counter are you offering me?” Katie asks carefully, feeling the doom of a self-assured Lance pressing in all around her.

“Keith is definitely ending up in that Jaeger, and none of those other recruits will be his co-pilot.”

“That’s literally-” Katie starts.

“What we just said,” Matt finishes, standing up and wiping his hands on his pants.

Hunk smiles wider. “You didn’t let him finish.”

“See, we’ve been talking,” Lance says.

“Always dangerous,” Katie says under her breath, leaning back in her chair.

“ _We’ve been talking_ ,” Lance repeats. “And we’ve noticed something interesting in the past day or so.”

Katie has no answer for this, so she just quirks an eyebrow and gestures for him to continue.

“I mean, the different tone of voice, the looks, the interactions. It’s all a little different. Not a _ton_ , but enough to notice.”

Hunk nods along with each point Lance makes. Katie looks over at her brother in confusion. He looks back at her, just as confused. At least they’re both roughly the same amount of lost. Knowing Lance and the way he works, she thinks she might know where this line of thinking is going to end up. But that’s _impossible_. Unlike most other people on this base, Katie is intimately familiar with the details of very many things. One such thing just so happens to be what she thinks he and Hunk might be thinking about. If that’s truly where they’re going, they’re insane.

“And really, the avenue travels both ways,” Hunk adds on.

_Fuck_. She knows exactly what they’re getting at for sure now.

“Okay…” Matt says, waving his hand forward in little circles for them to continue.

“Keith is going to pilot Black for sure,” Hunk says.

“And Shiro is going to be his co-pilot.”

_FUCK._

 

+++

 

Lance is feeling pretty smug after dropping the nuclear fucking bomb of a bet on the Holt sibling’s heads. Admittedly, he feels smug fairly often about a lot of things, but just this once, he really managed to take Pidge by surprise. She’s a tough one to sideswipe. Pleasantly, Hunk is sharing in the smug feeling. He puffs his chest out a teensy bit as they stroll into the Kwoon, trailing two very grumbly scientists behind them.

Taking their place on the sidelines, Lance glances around the room. It’s unusually full today. Of course, the reason why is completely obvious, but still. These people could stand to be a bit more subtle. Hunk snorts a laugh from beside him and pokes him in the rib.

“I know what you’re thinking. You hardly have room to talk.”

Hunk always seems to know what’s going on in Lance’s noggin. _God_ , he loves him so much.

A few minutes pass by with the usual polite chatter squawking on around them until Sam Holt breezes into the room, followed by a neat line of eight recruits. His face is set in its usual pleasant neutrality, but the recruits marching behind him seem anything but. Keith is in the front of the line, looking grim but determined, while the rest of the new kids just look downright terrified. It’s fair, Lance thinks. The first time he sparred with Hunk, he felt like the entire universe was watching him.

The recruits pull bo staffs from the rack on the wall one by one and take their places, lined up neatly, toes on the edge of the sparring mat and arms crossed behind them, staffs angled down at the floor.

“Good afternoon, ladies and gentleman,” greets Fightmaster Holt.

The rumble of returned sentiments moves across the room, punctuated by a bright, “What’s up, pops?!” from Katie.

Lance laughs and lazily glances around the rest of the gathered crowd. Off to the side stands the Marshall, Shiro at his side holding a clipboard at the ready, pen in hand and serious gaze on his face. Fightmaster Holt continues from the center of the room, drawing Lance’s attention back to the mats.

“Today, we’ll be moving through the compatibility sparring sessions much as we normally do. I’ll call out each set of partners, and you will each go for three rounds or until we’ve seen enough from you to satisfactorily come to a decision about your compatibility. The rules of engagement are as follows: no blows to sensitive areas, this includes the neck, the groin, and the chest for women. Your goal here is not to fight dirty, or even to fight, really. Your goal is to establish a connection. Do you understand?”

“Yes, sir!” eight voices shout in unison.

“Alright, then! First up, recruits Kogane and Mori!”

Lance watches with interest as Keith and a slight, asian woman remove their shoes and head to the center of the mat, bowing to each other and crouching down into a fighting stance, bo staffs raised out horizontally between extended hands. Mori’s form is perfect, just the right kind of polish to prove that she’s fresh from training. Keith is slightly more sloppy. He stands like a man who has better things to do, but still wouldn’t mind the workout. It’s interesting to see the progression of people from recruit to Ranger to veteran to random-upstart-turned-wall-builder-guy.

He feels a kind of nostalgia watching Mori square up on the mat. Once you find a partner, there’s no reason to stay bootcamp poised. You have a little assistance with all the heavy lifting. With someone always at your back, you can relax some. Lance looks off to his side, where Hunk stands, chatting happily with one of the machinists from downstairs in the Shatterdome. Without even looking or interrupting himself, he pulls his hand from its place in his pocket and reaches over to Lance, lacing their hands together. Lance smiles down at their interlocked fingers. _Point proven._

Mr. Holt steps off to the side and blows the whistle hanging around his neck, signaling the start of the match.

Mori sweeps forward toward Keith, flourishing her staff and aiming for his knee. He spots her, though, and steps aside. She’s unable to pull back her momentum, and as her body weight propels her past him, Keith spins around, tapping her spine with the end of his staff.

“Point,” he mutters, and returns to home position.

“Point,” Mr. Holt confirms. Shiro makes a note on his pad across the room.

Mori drops back down into a starting crouch, looking a little agitated with Keith. Lance quirks the corner of his lip. He knows exactly how that feels. The whistle blows again, and this time, Mori tries to make Keith come to her. They circle each other for a bit, each sizing the other up, but eventually, that gives way to awkward half-steps toward the center, feeling out each other’s boundaries.

Keith gets bored of that pretty quickly, it seems, because the next time Mori tries to step in, he feints left and sweeps her legs out from under her.

“Point,” he and Mr. Holt say at the same time. Lance glances over to catch Shiro scribbling even more on his notes. Lance elbows Hunk in the side.

“Hey, what do you think he writes during these things?”

Hunk laughs. “Who knows. Maybe he’s just drawing pictures?”

Matt pipes up from Lance’s other side, “Maybe he’s writing down all the ways he’d kick their asses himself.”

Yeah, Lance thinks, that’s pretty plausible. Still, he’d kill to take a look at that note pad.

“Point,” Keith says again from the middle of the room, and Lance groans at himself for missing the move, because Mori is laid out on her back, fists clenched at her side, bo staff in Keith’s grasp.

“Match,” says Fightmaster Holt, stepping back into the center of the room. “Looks like you two aren’t it, huh?”

Keith is the very picture of cool, calm, collected indifference. Mori looks frustrated at best.

“Alright, then,” continues Mr. Holt. “Kogane, you stay here, let’s try Beckett.”

A new recruit steps forward, removing his shoes. This one looks more Keith’s speed. He’s got a good six inch height advantage, and the meaty, sturdy build of a man birthed in a midwestern cornfield under the clear blue sky. His hair is shaggy - so at least they have that in common - and he’s got a mischievous twinkle to his eye, like this is all some big joke. He steps to the center of the mat.

“Ready for a real challenge now, Kogane?” he asks, voice dripping in self confidence. Keith remains stoic and still, responding with a slight nod, but _god_ if Lance doesn’t wanna slap the guy for him.

“I don’t like him,” whispers Hunk.

“Mood,” agrees Pidge.

“Alright, boys,” Holt declares between them. “Same rules apply.”

He steps off the mat and puts the whistle in his mouth. Before he’s finished blowing, Beckett lunges forward, staff extended directly at Keith’s face. Keith throws his up just in time to catch it, the wood clacking loudly over the noise of the crowd, and redirects the blow away from his body. He huffs, blowing his hair out of his eyes.

“What happened to not fighting dirty?” he drawls, and even though the attempt on his nose’s life must have shaken him, he still manages to sound a little bored. Lance is impressed. This kid has some solid gold plated balls at the very least.

“It’s not dirty if it doesn’t connect,” Beckett sneers, hopping back and redoubling his efforts.

“I _really_ don’t like that guy,” whispers Hunk.

“ _Big_ mood,” agrees Pidge.

Beckett jumps forward again, only this time, he angles his body toward the ground, driving his full force into Keith’s knees and forcing him to the mat. Keith lands with a quiet _oof_ and is distracted long enough for Beckett to tap his inner thigh with the end of his staff.

“Point,” he says triumphantly.

“Point,” Mr. Holt agrees.

The two reset, only this time, Keith looks ready. He looks more than ready, really. He looks _pissed_. There’s a fire burning in his deep violet eyes that terrifies Lance a little, and even though he can’t wait to see him kick this dude’s ass, he’s also a little concerned for the clean-up crew that may have to be called in. Lance shoots a glance back at the Marshall and Shiro, but they’re both whispering heatedly and barely paying attention.

Grunting brings Lance back to the middle of the room just in time to watch Keith launch himself forward, zig-zagging across the mat in smooth high knees. Beckett readies his bo staff before him, curling his lip and narrowing his eyes. Just when Keith gets close enough for Beckett to attempt a swing, he launches himself clean off the mat, flipping forward over the other man’s head, tapping his spine with his staff on the way down. He lands, facing away from Beckett in a crouch, one leg pointed straight out, bo staff laid across his arm with the point extended off to his side, fucking Spiderman-after-a-battle style.

“Point,” he grits out, still crouched on the ground.

Beckett growls a deep, primal sound, whirling around to strike Keith on the back with his staff.

“THAT IS ENOUGH,” the Marshall bellows from the side of the room. Every head whips around to face him, Shiro glaring out from beside him, furiously writing on his pad. “Beckett, you’re benched for the day. Dismissed!”

Beckett’s face contorts, but he still manages to snarl out a punctuated, “ _Yessir_ ,” before whirling around and stalking from the room, leaving his boots and a very annoyed looking Keith behind. The room buzzes around Lance, but he remains totally silent, fixed in on Keith. The man is really something else. He’s all sharp angles and bite, but he moves like a cat, graceful and silent. Lance is beginning to understand why his reputation is as it is.

“Alright, alright,” Fightmaster Holt says, taking control of the room again. “Kogane, can you spar again?”

“Yes, sir. I’m fine.”

“Good, then let’s have-” Mr. Holt is just about to read the next name from his list when Shiro steps forward  with a raised hand and stops him.

“Mr. Holt, if I may. There’s no point. He’s going to keep going through them.”

Keith bristles in the center of the room, dropping his staff. “What the hell do you _mea_ -”

“Kogane,” Shiro barks, turning to face him. Lance wants to rub his hands together like a raccoon in a trash can. He feels the blessings about to rain down from overhead. The room fills with a static sort of charge, everyone knows they’re on the precipice of something, but they aren’t sure _what_ it is yet. Lance is fairly certain, though. He’s usually right about these things. He shoots a glance over at Hunk, who’s already smiling at him expectantly, and squeezes their threaded fingers excitedly.

“The point of sparring isn’t to _win_ , Keith,” Shiro continues, stalking toward the mat. “It’s to have a conversation. To work in tandem to reach a conclusion. But right now? You’re just shouting over everyone else and hoping to come out of the other side victorious. It’s boring, honestly, and not what you’re here for.”

The more Shiro goes on, the more incensed Keith looks. Lances wants to commit this moment to memory. He wants to roll around in the feeling like a pig in mud. He wants to preserve it and deep freeze it and lock it away in a time capsule so he can come back in twenty years, open the container, and scream _AHA!_ It’s everything he never knew he needed, but here it is, being given to him by his actual goddamn _hero_. Lance could cry. He really could.

“I _know_ that!” Keith tries to argue, stepping slightly forward, fists curled down at his sides.

“Do you?” Shiro asks, impatiently. “Because I’m not seeing it. You’re better than this.”

“Fine, then!” Keith shouts, turning to Mr. Holt. “Let me go again. I’ll prove it!”

The Fightmaster looks over at the Marshall, who shrugs and gestures his approval. The chatter in the background picks up again in fervor, people placing bets, talking odds, commenting on the situation.

“Okay, then,” Mr. Holt says with great effort. “Let’s have you take on-”

“No.” Shiro says with finality. “He’s sparring me.”

The room goes deathly silent.

Lance grins triumphantly at Katie, Hunk whoops with a fist in the air, Matt looks like his entire life leading up to this moment has been a lie, and Keith? Keith looks ready to shit himself. The Marshall looks very much like a dad who thought taking his kids on a weekend camping trip was a great idea, but then they got there and everyone realized they were sleeping in tents and shit just went all kinds of rabid-dog-wild, and now dad just wants a bourbon.

Shiro removes his uniform shirt and boots, carefully placing them to the side of the ring. He steps over to the weapons rack, picking up a staff and twirling it grandiosely in front of him. If it were anyone else, he would look like an absolute jackass. But Shiro is a _legend_. Everything about him is larger than life without him even meaning for it to be. Grabbing a staff should be no different, really. He returns to the center of the room in slow, purposeful steps, whispering from the crowd following behind him as he goes, and stops, mere feet from Keith, shooting him a haughty look.

“Are you ready to have a conversation, Keith?” he asks. Lance swears to god he sees sparks fly between their eyeballs. This is the kind of shit people pay $9.99 a month and continuously delete their browser history for. They aren’t even _sparring_ yet. He wonders if they need a moment alone.

“Only if you think you can hear me, old man,” Keith shoots back, glancing meaningfully at Shiro’s white forelock. Holy shit. Nobody _ever_ comments on Shiro’s appearance. That’s, like, holy grail rule numero uno: Thou shalt not ever mention, reference, or acknowledge the prodigal son’s visage. So say we all. _Amen_. It’s almost like...

“Are they _flirting_?” Pidge whispers to Lance. “Is this what them flirting looks like?”

Lance scoffs. “I think so.”

Hunk leans around him. “You guys, I don’t think that’s flirting.”

“What do you mean?” Lance asks.

“That’s foreplay.”

“Oh my god, _kill me_ ,” Matt whines.

 

+++

 

It’s not that Shiro thinks Keith was totally in the wrong when he was sparring Beckett. He’s not the one who tried to strike an opponent when he was unengaged. It’s just that he never gave anyone a _chance_. He walked into the Kwoon ready for total process failure. The only way sparring finds you a partner is if you _let it_ find you a partner. Keith needs to let the process work, otherwise he’s just wasting everyone’s time. Shiro is the most experienced sparring partner in the room. The responsibility to make Keith understand falls on his shoulders.

That’s what he tells himself, anyway.

The Marshall was...less than pleased when Shiro told him he’d be challenging Keith. He gets it. He still has nightmares. There are days where he can barely drag his numbed body out of bed. There are instances where he rounds the corner into a bathroom, and the tap is running, and he sees Sven’s body rolling through the saltwater in front of him, and he has to sprint from the room lest he vomit all over the floor. So if this little lesson goes sideways of the point he gave the Marshall and they prove compatible...well, that could be a problem. Also, Shiro’s seen Keith’s profile. He knows the issues wouldn’t be one-sided.

The thing is, though, from the moment he actually got to see Keith’s much anticipated skills, he knew he needed in on it. Truthfully, it was long before that. He knows he hasn’t imagined the crackle of energy they share as similar souls. Whether this proves out the way he secretly hopes it will or not, Shiro _needs_ to spar with Keith. He’s down and dirty, he’s scrappy, he’s fast. He’s also agile and fluid and graceful. What’s that thing they say about beauty and grace? He’s got lots of both, to be honest.

More than that, his intelligence and ability to read situations are both off the charts. Literally. His test and sim scores are out of control. It’s been a long time since Shiro’s seen a challenge, and Keith Kogane is one hell of a challenge. He’s the ultimate test, and Shiro wants to be the last one to take it.

“Only if you think you can hear me, old man.”

Shiro smirks and drops into a crouch.

“I’ll turn my hearing aids up for you.”

Out of the corner of his eye, he can see Lance and Pidge whispering to each other. That can’t be good. Keith throws him a sharp smile and sinks down with his bo staff. He flicks his fingers to Shiro, beckoning him to make the first move.

“Age before beauty.”

“I’d be offended if I didn’t know I could kick your ass seven ways from Sunday.”

Keith _laughs_ , light and tinkling, and starts to prowl around the mat. “It’s six.”

“Six what?” Shiro asks, mirroring his movements, drawing circles out around the floor.

“Six ways from Sunday. I thought they discharged people for dementia?”

Shiro stops moving, dropping the hand holding his staff limply at his side and clutching his chest with the other.

“ _Kogane_. I’m hurt.”

“I haven’t even touched you yet.”

Shiro shivers at the electric _yet_ that shocks its way up his spine. Keith steps forward, eyes scrunched up in determination. He swings his staff in a wide arc over his head, bringing it back down to spin in front of himself and stopping with the end pointed directly at Shiro’s chest, no more than six inches away. Shiro’s eyebrow leaps upward without his permission.

“I never took you for the kind to peacock, Kogane.”

“Hmmmm,” he answers, “sometimes you gotta put an old dog in its place.”

Shiro steps back, swinging his staff around each side of his body before bringing it upright to his side.

“Is that a saying they teach you out there on the Wall?”

Keith snorts. “Something like that.”

He launches himself forward, flipping the end of his staff over and stopping it an inch away from Shiro’s face. “Point.”

Keith makes to reset himself into home position, and while he’s busy Shiro takes advantage of his distraction to swing his staff down and around, tapping him on the side. “Point.”

Keith twists his mouth and takes a step back. Shiro follows his lead and does the same, bright smile pasted on his face.

“Getting frustrated already, recruit?”

“In your dreams, grandpa.”

With that, he twists on his heel, spinning around backward and thrusting the end of his staff out again. Shiro hops back to dodge it, sidestepping and answering with a swift side swing of his own. Keith is fast, though. Shiro knew he was fast. He’s seen how fast he is. But _feeling_ how fast he is up close and personal is incredible. Keith swings back around, hands on either end of his staff, and catches his blow mid-swing with an earth shattering _clack_. Shiro and Keith both grunt from the force reverberating up their arms.

They push away from each other and Shiro can’t help the laugh that spills from his lips. It’s been so long since he’s enjoyed a spar like this. He feels his blood thrum under his skin. Before him, Keith shakes his hair out like a dog, spraying the mat with sweat and grinning like an angel. There’s a sparkle in his eyes and Shiro would bet actual money that his own face is a perfect match of the expression.

He doesn’t get long to revel in the feeling, however, because he quickly finds himself on his back, Keith standing over him with the end of his staff touching his nose.

“Point.”

Shiro laughs again. “Good job, young one.”

Keith glares down at him, lifts his staff and taps it down on his shoulder. “Point, _you old bastard_.”

Shiro laughs again, throwing his legs up over his hips so he can leap up from the floor.

“Such a petty child.”

Shiro’s been taking it pretty easy on him. It’s time to really teach Keith Kogane a lesson. He hops up to his feet and rushes forward, both arms extended behind him, bo staff trailing in his wake, and spins at the last minute, bringing the wood around to trace the line of his back as he leans down, sweeping Keith’s feet out from under him. Once Keith hits the mat, Shiro drops to his knees, grabbing him by the right thigh before it can hit the ground. Planting himself between Keith’s legs, he draws the leg up under his armpit in an unyielding knee bar. Keith squirms and fights, but Shiro has bulk on his side. Eventually, Keith gives up and goes limp.

“Point,” Shiro says airily, letting him go and standing back up. “I’m getting bored, Kogane. I thought you were gonna prove something to me out here.”

Keith’s temperament changes flashfire quick. All amusement seeps from his expression until his eyes are freezing amethysts in the wilderness, his face tightening into a furious moue and _there it is_. It’s the exact spark Shiro’s been looking for since Keith stepped foot in the Kwoon this morning.

Shiro likes to think that he’s a pretty smart man. In fact, Shiro knows for a goddamn fact that he’s a smart man. You don’t get to where he is without being able to do a little math and shake a few hands. Sometimes it takes him a little while, but eventually he can get right to the root of a man. What drives him forward, what motivates him, what makes him see the apex and rush determinedly toward it. Their banter up until now has been fun and all, but it’s also served another purpose for Shiro: he needed to find a weak spot. Keith’s seems to be thinking that he’s not being taken seriously.

“Oh, I’ll show you something alright, father time.”

Lance _OOOHHHHHHHH_ s in the background, and Keith flies forward in a flurry of blows. Shiro storms out to meet him, redirecting every thrust, parrying every hit, dodging every knee. It’s a complicated dance, but they pull off the choreography like it’s been practiced a million times before. They know the language they’re speaking before the words are even translated. Keith swings his staff around in a wide arc on the floor, trying to trip him up, but Shiro knows what he’s going to do the moment Keith does, and jumps up to avoid it. Keith catches him on the come down, though, and sweeps him with his leg, just as he makes contact with the floor. Shiro lands on his back, pushing the air from his chest in a wheeze, and Keith sets his foot down square in the middle of his chest. It crushes straight through to his soul.

“How’s that work for you, gramps?”

Shiro grabs his ankle, pulling him down to the floor and rolling their bodies until he’s straddling Keith’s hips, his forearm resting across his collarbone.

“Not the worst view I’ve ever had, sunshine.”

Keith freezes below him and Shiro briefly thinks he crossed a line. That is until Keith reaches up, softly dragging a calloused palm down the bicep of the arm resting just below his neck. When they write the history of this moment, because Shiro is fairly certain they will, he’ll have to remember to leave out the part where his goosebumps had goosebumps. The Earth shifts. His world shimmers and blurs. All he sees is Keith’s smile and Keith’s scrunched eyes and the tendons in Keith’s neck flexing, and suddenly, he’s on his back in an armbar, Keith’s legs thrown over his chest. Distantly, he thinks that if there’s ever a way to go down, it would suit him just fine if Keith’s legs were involved.

He laughs out loud just as much at himself as at the situation.

“Do you yield, old money?”

Shiro laughs harder, actual tears forcing themselves from the corners of his eyes.

“If I do, you gonna tell me all about myself, Gatsby?”

Keith bends forward and shoots him one last smirk, still holding onto his arm.

“I am one of the few honest people I have ever known.”

Shiro had a hunch pretty early on in their session. He had more than a hunch. But now he _knows_. He knows, he knows, he knows. He’s fairly certain Keith knows, too. He can feel it between them. The red string of fate sewn around their bodies, drawing them closer together to take down the last of the titans.

“Keith, I-”

“Alright, that’s enough!” shouts the Marshall. Keith immediately lets go of his arm and hops up. Snapping to attention. Shiro follows his lead. The room is totally silent, and quickly, Shiro tries to parse through the file folders in his mind to pinpoint the exact moment that happened. He finds that he can’t do it. He can’t remember the faces or the noises or anything else outside of the two of them, connected and warring.

“We’ll call it for the day. I want all recruits to reconvene tomorrow morning at 0900 for another session,” Iverson rolls on. “Perhaps we can actually find some partners then.”

Shiro whirls around to face the Marshall. “But, sir, I-”

“0900, recruits! Shirogane, I want your report with today’s notes on my desk this evening. Dismissed!”

Iverson strides from the room, leaving everyone in stunned silence. He had to have seen it. Shiro _knows_ that he had to have seen it. There’s no way that he could have watched that session, watched their _connection_ and not have seen it. It’s not fair. It’s been three years. Shiro’s got his problems, but he deserves this chance. _Keith deserves this chance_ . They just managed to convince him to come back and now this? As the others slowly stream out, confused chatter accompanying them through the door, Shiro refocuses and turns to Keith. His eyes are closed and his jaw is set. No. Nonono. Shiro knows that look. Keith does not deserve to wear that look. _Especially_ after finding-

“Keith,” Shiro says, stepping forward to place a hand on his shoulder. Keith opens his eyes, looking up at Shiro through long lashes, and in his irises, Shiro sees every constellation he ever dreamed of chasing. He sees rainbow painted infinities stretching out across a timeline Shiro stopped wanting to see years ago. Keith’s spine of steel, spirit of diamond, attitude of a goddamn donkey, all of it. Shiro wants to tuck it inside himself and carry it forward. He could do that. They’re drift compatible. They’re _meant to be_.

“Thank you for the lesson, Officer Shirogane.”

“Keith, please.”

“I appreciate the help.”

“Keith, you _felt it_ , right?”

Keith smiles tightly and drops his shoulder, shaking Shiro’s hand off.

“I’ll see you around, Takashi.”

It’s the first time Keith’s used his first name. It’s the first time he’s acknowledged their fast connection, their familiarity. Shiro should be rejoicing at the breakthrough. Instead, Shiro wants to throw himself off the nearest cliff.

Keith turns and leaves the Kwoon.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'm very sorry about the late update! i recently bought a house, so i've been covered in tape and paint for longer than i'd care for.  
> either way, i hope you enjoyed this chapter, and i'll see you next week! <3!


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> a new spar, a new lead, a new roadblock
> 
> [please note the rating change]

_“The War Clock maintains an otherwise accurate record of the number of Kaiju attacks using war statistics accumulated from the_ [ _LOCCENT Mission Control_ ](http://pacificrim.wikia.com/wiki/LOCCENT_Mission_Control) _. The War Clock monitors the number of years, months, weeks, days, hours and minutes that have passed since the last Kaiju attack. It is reset after an attack is dealt with and doubles as a source of motivation to keep_ [ _officers_ ](http://pacificrim.wikia.com/wiki/Officer) _within the Shatterdome focused on their respective objectives.”_

_-[PPDC Ranger Training Manual](http://pacificrim.wikia.com/wiki/War_Clock) _

 

+++

 

Keith doesn’t consider himself a coward. He’s one of those people who was born with a little less fear than everyone else. That’s not always a good thing, really. It just is what it is. The past couple days have left him shaken to the core of his very being, though, which is why he’s absolutely, positively, one-hundred-percent not dodging his feelings or avoiding his duties up in the gym at midnight. Nope. He just...couldn’t sleep and needed to release some pent-up energy. That’s definitely it.

A lock of his hair slips from his ponytail and pokes him in the eye, his own body admonishing him for the blatant lie. He blows it out of the way and punches the bag in front of him again. _Nope. Not avoiding anything at all._

When he walked into the Kwoon earlier in the week, he had every intention of not caring at all what happened in that room. Then, Takashi Shirogane happened in that room. Keith knows without a shadow of a doubt that they’re drift compatible. He felt it in the first two minutes of their spar. They both did, he knows they both did. The Marshall denying their connection is its own Pandora’s box, but what really affected Keith was the fact that it even happened _at all_.

Shirogane’s already had a partner before and it ended in tragedy. Keith couldn’t even make it past Academy because the ghosts of his dead family and the ways he failed them haunted his every waking moment. How on Earth could it be that they two aligned so well? Nothing about them should have been so easy as meet, chat for literally two minutes, be attracted to each other, wander around the base alone for half a day, spar perfectly. From the moment Keith’s feet touched down on that wet landing pad, however, Shiro had somehow wormed his way into every crack and crevice.

Shiro’s smiling face during the match floats up to the forefront of Keith’s mind, unbidden. He sighs to himself and delivers a backward kick to the punching bag.

Keith should have known prior to their spar, if he’s honest with himself. He knew their interactions were charged with a strange sort of static electricity, and although he’s never been a true Ranger before, he’d sat through enough lectures and demonstrations to know what the feeling is like.

And sure, drift compatibility doesn’t always come with romance, there are partners on this very base that prove that fact. It would seem that this won’t be the case for Keith and Shiro, though. Keith’s seen some of the looks Shiro’s given him in passing, and he knows he hasn’t been all that subtle in return.

Being pinned down underneath the full force of Shiro’s weight sure didn’t help shit, either.

Sweat drips down into Keith’s eyes, blurring out his vision. He makes to throw another punch before going to clean himself up for the night, but his fist is snatched clean out of the air by a hand that he didn’t see extending out in front of the bag. Keith shakes the sweat from his hair, wiping the back of his free hand over his face to clear his vision, and looks over at the body connected to the hand.

_Fucking of course_.

Standing before him, still holding on to his hand, is one very relaxed Takashi Shirogane. He’s dressed casually in sweats and a t-shirt, like he just sort of...rolled out of bed and wandered up here. His other hand is shoved in the pocket of his pants, and he’s wearing the most non-threatening smile Keith has ever seen in his life.

He’s still holding his hand.

Keith gives it a very pointed look, and Shiro follows his sight. Realizing that he’s _still_ holding onto Keith’s fist, he turns pink and lets it drop. Both hands returned, Keith grabs the hem of his t-shirt, pulling it up so he can wipe his face with the bottom of the fabric. When he drops it back down, he blinks a few times and looks up, catching Shirogane’s eyes most definitely trained down around his navel. _Ah, right_. Keith forgot how awkward sexual tension worked there for a minute.

Keith clears his throat and bends down a little, catching Shirogane’s eye. He turns pink again. Keith can’t handle this tonight.

“Officer Shirogane.”

He snaps out of his trance, jumping a little at the sound of Keith’s voice.

“Shiro, please. Everyone calls me Shiro. Or just Takashi is fine. You called me Takashi the other day and it was okay, so-” Shiro cuts himself off from his rambling. Keith honestly could have stood to let him go on a little longer. It’s refreshing to see him out of his element.

“Okay, Shiro. What brings you up here tonight? Aside from holding my sweaty hand, that is.”

Shiro shoves his second hand in his pocket and awkwardly clears his throat.

“Oh! I, uh. I don’t know really. I couldn’t sleep, and sometimes I take walks when that happens. I heard some noise in here as I passed by, and here we are.” He gestures to the room at large.

Keith nods his head. “Ah.”

“And why, may I ask, are _you_ in the gym at midnight?” Shiro asks, leaning forward toward Keith, an inquisitive smile playing across his face.

“Same, really,” Keith answers. “Couldn’t sleep, so I came up to try and make myself tired.”

Shiro puts a hand to his chin in thought. “That makes sense. Do you wanna tell me why you couldn’t sleep?”

Keith knows what he’s doing, and it’s not gonna work.

“Not particularly,” he answers.

“Well, then,” Shiro says, wandering over to the practice mats, “you wanna wear each other out a bit while we definitely don’t talk about whatever the problem is?”

Keith snorts lightly, following in Shiro’s wake. “Sure thing, Officer Shirogane.”

“What did I say earlier?” Shiro rebukes, throwing his hands indignantly on his hips.

“Oh, I’m so _sorry_ ,” Keith drawls, scraping himself into a low bow with one arm drawn across his chest, “I meant to say ‘Sure thing, Officer _Shiro_.’”

Keith straightens back up with a flourishing flick of his wrist. Shiro smirks across the mat, “Much better, thank you.”

With that, he launches his body directly at Keith. In the brief bullet time that always happens at the very beginning of a fight, Keith registers that they aren’t using weapons today. They’re doing this hand-to-hand. This is exciting, because neither of them have seen the other go at it with fists alone. Neither of them know the other’s tricks. This is both an advantage and a disadvantage, but it also lets him test Shiro’s limits in a pure way.

Back in the Academy, Takashi Shirogane of the Galaxy Garrison was a pillar of technique. His sims and spars were things of legend, the videos used over and over for students of multiple schools all across the world to analyze, learn, and poorly imitate. None of them, however, were of him totally unarmed.

If his fist wasn’t flying directly at Keith’s nose, he’d take another second to admire the flex of his muscles, the angle of his approach, the sheen of determination in his eyes. As it is, Keith is getting really tired of defending his important facial landmarks this week. He flutters his eyes closed and ducks to the side, feeling the swish of air moving just next to his ear as Shiro’s strike fails to land.

He reopens his eyes and bunnyhops backward a bit, just to get his space buffer back. Shiro is relentless, though. Keith barely gets his feet settled before they’re swept out from beneath him, a large foot placed down on his chest. Shiro looks down on him smiling.

“I like this position from this angle much better.”

Keith laughs at the reminder of their last spar, wrapping his hand (since when did his hand look so small? Have his fingers always been this delicate?) around a sturdy ankle.

“Yeah, well don’t get used to the view, old man.”

He shoves the foot from it’s placement and rolls over to push himself up, but before he can get past bending his elbows to shove off the ground, Shiro’s dropped down to his level, straddling his back with an arm bearing down on his neck.

“And if I’d _like_ to get used to the view?” he growls in Keith’s ear. They both ignore the shiver that rolls down his spine.

He shoves his palms against the ground, rearing upwards and throwing Shiro from his back. Using the momentum he’s already built, Keith flips himself over Shiro’s head, using his shoulders as a surface to launch from and landing behind him. He leans forward, draping his arms over Shiro’s shoulders, his mouth next to his ear.

“At least buy a boy dinner first, _Takashi_ ,” he purrs, and hops up, planting his foot square in Shiro’s back and shoving him forward to sprawl face down on the floor. Shiro laughs breathlessly and rolls over onto his back. He stays there for a moment, catching his breath and staring up at Keith.

“You did feel it, didn’t you, Keith?”

Keith sighs. He knew he would do this. Shiro seems just the type to use certain things as excuses to address _other_ things. He’s also already proven that he doesn’t take no for an answer and he _also_ won’t take Keith’s bullshit for truth. Keith closes his eyes and angles his head back, face toward the ceiling.

“Yeah. Yeah, I felt it.”

Shiro sits up, arms propped up on his knees, hopeful look on his face.

“You still feel it, don’t you, Keith?”

He reopens his eyes and looks down at Shiro. The light vertigo from the change in perspective is a perfect metaphor for this bullshit anxiety he’s suddenly feeling about this whole situation.

“Yeah. Yeah, I feel it.”

Shiro smiles. “Then I guess we don’t need to spar anymore, huh?”

“It doesn’t matter, really,” Keith says, extending a hand to help Shiro up from the ground. “The Marshall’ll still say no.”

Shiro looks at Keith thoughtfully.

“Did you know my Jaeger is here?”

Keith feels his eyebrows engage hyperdrive and zoom clear to the back of his head. “The Black Lion?! _Here_?”

Shiro looks down, a wry smile just barely contorting his mouth. “Yeah. The boys downstairs have been working on her for a while now.”

“Your Jaeger is the Mark Three the Marshall has.”

Shiro snaps his head back up to look directly at Keith. His eyes are swirling with a fire, intense and blazing. Keith’s not entirely a metaphor type of guy, but he could write books of shitty self-published teenage poetry about his eyes. Charcoal grey and deep as the oceans trenches, soft and hard and polished and rough cut. The man is contradictions through and through.

“That’s right.”

But then that would mean the Jaeger already _has_ a pilot. The Marshall was only looking for a co-pilot. Why would he act like he wasn’t?

“Okay, but the Marshall never-”

“The Marshall doesn’t want me back in a Jaeger. Call it misplaced protectiveness. He’s afraid I’ll lose it.”

Keith clenches his fists. It’s not a sentiment that needs to be shared in present company, as he’s quite aware that Shiro shares it, but,

“You’re not a child.”

Shiro huffs a laugh. “No, I’m not.”

“So why-”

“I’ll tell you my tragic backstory if you tell me yours.”

Keith stops thinking. He stops moving. He stops breathing. He’s pretty sure his body stops maintaining homeostasis. Shiro is searching his face for something, Keith isn’t entirely sure what. The gears in his head slowly re-engage, turning over the prospect of sharing the full details of his weakness. His struggle must show on his face.

“So, hey, this isn’t supposed to be pressure or anything,” Shiro starts,”but I think you should know that the United Nations wants to shut us down.”

That snaps Keith out of it.

" _What?!"_

“Yeah. They think the walls are enough to keep the Kaiju away. They want to refocus on closing the breach. And if I can be totally honest with you, Keith? I want to get back in a Jaeger before they can take it away from me. I want to get back in Black before they can take her away from me.”

“I built those walls. I’ve seen those walls up close. I’ve seen them crumple like fucking cards when a Kaiju attacks. _Those walls won’t stop shit!_ ”

Shiro’s eyes widen and he laughs, a shaken, surprised little sound.

“Yeah. I know.”

Keith has seen the death and destruction those shitty walls haven’t kept out. He’s seen the chaos and bloodshed. He’s felt the shame knowing that he was screwing in useless bolts while people drowned and burned and died. He can’t let some bureaucrats continue a losing strategy. He can’t let his fear control him. Keith likes to tell himself he’s not a coward. It’s time to prove it. He forces the words through his teeth.

“My family-”

The Kaiju alarms howl overhead.

 

+++

 

“Hey, Matty.”

“Yeah?”

“Come take a look at this for me.”

Pidge takes a step back from the chalkboard and rubs at her eyes beneath her glasses. It’s taken her all day to get to this point, but she’s finally finished re-doing the math and something’s not right. Not with the math, mind. Just...in general. Something’s not right. Her math is perfect, but the Kaiju events just aren’t lining up. They’re just barely to the left of correct.

Matt strolls over, a chunk of Kaiju in hand, and rakes his eyes over the boards.

“What’s up, Katie?”

“Just look over this and tell me if anything looks off to you.”

He sets the flesh mound off on a table and strips his gloves, grabbing a pencil from behind his ear. He spends a few minutes crunching the numbers, Katie nervously tapping her foot behind him. After he’s finished recalculating, he looks up.

“This looks fine to me…”

“Okay, then.” Katie reaches into her desk, grabbing for her event record. “Take a look at these event occurrences. Tell me what you see.”

He glances between the two sets of numbers and then, like a light on the horizon, it dawns across his face.

“They don’t match.”

“Right. And I would say that maybe my math is wrong, but-”

“But your math is perfect. It lines up completely until about six months ago.”

“Yes! And even when it falls off, it doesn’t really _fall off_. That’s why I didn’t notice the change.”

Matt looks up at her.

“Katie, what does this signify?”

“That I can’t say, but it’s definitely meaningful. That aside, I have something to present to the Marshall.”

Matt’s face washes over in disbelief.

“This doesn’t mean you’re-”

“No, I’m not giving up on the drift. In fact, I think we should do it even more now. But this idea will give us a little more ammo for the arguing, at least.”

He relaxes.

“Okay, tell me about it.”

“We drop a nuke in it.”

Matt goes pale.

“We’re gonna what?”

“I don’t mean you and me, nerd.”

“OH THANK GOD.”

Katie smiles at her brother fondly.

“So, I mentioned dropping a payload in a while back, but I wasn’t entirely sure how effective that would be. I still don’t really know. But what I _do_ know is it can help us determine the kind of substance we’re looking at here. I kinda have a hunch, but I don’t want to talk about it until I’m sure.”

“Well, if that’s the case, why nuclear?”

“I’m going for sheer destructive force here. That’ll help us come to a better conclusion, I think.”

“What’s the desired outcome?”

“Well, I have two _expected_ outcomes, if that’s what you mean. Outcome the first! The mission fails and we get nothing.”

Matt snorts.

“Outcome the second! The mission fails, but we get more information about the nature of the breach.”

“Ah, of course.”

“But really, the point here is to see how far we need to get the bomb to cause any damage. Like I said, I have some idea of what’s going on with the breach, but I just need this little push. Of course it would help if he’d just let me drift with-”

“Drift with what, our intrepid little number bug?”

Katie and Matt both spin around and come face-to-face with the smiling ginger mustache of Coran, wandering around the lab and picking up pieces of Kaiju with his bare hands. Katie loves this job and even she thinks that’s gross.

“Uhhhhhh.”

“Because, I heard a rumor!” Coran sing-songs, plopping the chunk of liver he was holding back down on its examination table.

“You did?” Matt asks, visibly gulping.

“Oh yes! And quite an interesting rumor, too!”

Katie feels the ground tremble beneath her feet. The atmosphere shifts around them. There’s a storm a comin’ and she needs to seek shelter.

“I heard that our young Katie Holt wants to drift with a Kaiju!” Coran announces, spinning around on a heel and presenting himself to the room at large. Katie feels the blood leave her head. If the sweet release of death could go ahead and come for her right about now, she’d be totally cool with it. She has to explain herself, sidestep this somehow.

“I, uh-”

“Do you also want to know something else?” Coran interrupts, leaning forward with a finger pressed against his lips.

“Well, I-”

“I think it’s a fabulous idea!” he finishes brightly.

“Look, I know that-wait, _what_?!”

“Yes! I listened to your math, I know our odds in this war, and I know that sometimes risks must be taken to ensure a swift victory!” Coran clenches his fist triumphantly in the air, gazing determinedly into the middle distance.

“We just-”

“Also, I know someone that might be able to help. If you want. It’s a little sketchy, but you two are resourceful young ones!”

“That’s great and all, Coran, but-”

Coran reaches into his pants pocket and withdraws a matte, black business card, thrusting it into the space between them.

“He owes me a favor, this one!”

Katie looks at Matt. He shrugs over at her and tips his head to the card. Sighing, she reaches out and plucks it from between Coran’s fingers. She brings it closer to her face, letting Matt take a look over her shoulder. The card is totally plain, matte black except for two things: on the front, three white b’s with nothing else, and on the back, the white silhouette of something that looks suspiciously like a wacky waving inflatable tube man. Katie looks back up at Coran.

“Katie, I trust you to handle this with discretion. Can you do that for me?”

“Uh, yes of course, Coran.”

“Great! Then I was never here!”

With that, he turns tail and sweeps out of the lab.

Katie and Matt sit in total silence for a seconds, eyes flitting between the math boards, the events notebook, and the business card in her hand.

“Katie, what the _fuck_ is a bbb?”

“I dunno, Matt, but I’m not entirely sure I wanna find out.”

Still, just as the Kaiju event alarm sounds off from overhead, Katie gingerly tucks the business card in her wallet before following Matt up to the Shatterdome.

 

+++

 

“So, the boys downstairs said they’re just about done with the upgrades to the Black Lion. She’s almost ready to rejoin the fleet.”

Hunk is being very calm about all this. Hunk is being _entirely too_ _calm_ about all this. Lance is sprawled across his lap, stomach poking out from under his t-shirt, begging for belly rubs like a goddamn puppy to try and stay chill, and Hunk is entirely. too. fucking. calm. about. _THIS_.

“Hunk, you saw that spar.”

“Oh, is that what we’re calling it?”

Lance groans, flailing his feet against the couch cushion. “Please don’t do this to me, baby. I’m barely hanging on.”

“Better work on that grip strength, then.”

“But I mean, you saw that, right?!” he demands, pointedly ignoring the jab.

“I saw it.”

Lance flops over, dramatically curling himself into Hunk’s belly.

“You know what it means, right?!”

“It means your actual hero has an actual potential partner for the actual second time.”

“I’m actually gonna shit.”

Hunk laughs and scoops Lance up, crushing him to his chest just the way he likes when he’s freaking out.

“It’s good for him,” Hunk says, prodding him in the side. “We all know Shiro’s been having trouble keeping it together. This is good.”

“But, why _him_? Of all people? MY MORTAL ENEMY.”

“I feel like you’re the only one making this claim.”

Lance sighs. “I am.”

Hunk laughs again and pulls him in tighter.

“It’s wild, sure, but they’re obviously super drift compatible, and, it kinda seems, life compatible. So why not support him, you know?”

“See, that’s the thing, though. Like, we all watched them basically round third base on the floor in front of us.”

Hunk shudders, a sound very much like a strangled walrus escaping his mouth. “Yeah, it was, uh, a little more than I ever really wanted to see out of Shiro. It felt like watching my dad feel up my mom or something.”

“Okay yeah, that, _ew_. But also, the Marshall was watching them. He was _watching_.”

“He was, in fact, watching,” Hunk confirms.

“So why didn’t he send them up to the drift lab?”

Hunk rearranges Lance so he’s seated on his lap instead of draped across like a sulking 1930’s movie star, humming while he thinks.

“I’m not sure, really. I did think it was pretty weird that he wouldn’t acknowledge it.”

“Why do you think that is?”

Hunk hums again, pressing his nose into Lance’s hair, hands tracing down his sides. Lance shivers, pushing himself into the warm touch. It’s been awhile since he and Hunk could snatch some time together, and these rare moments always slip by so quickly. It’s really no wonder that Hunk’s trying to distract him from complaining. Their privacy is too precious to waste with whining and Lance knows it.

“I mean, really,” Hunk answers his question, pressing warm lips to Lance’s throat “it’s the worst kept secret on this base,” another kiss, delivered to his adam’s apple, “that the Marshall basically thinks of him as a son,” another, more insistent, kiss, placed in the hollow of his throat, “so it stands to reason,” his hands slide to Lance’s hips, drawing him around to straddle Hunk’s lap, “that he would be,” Lance’s shirt gets pulled off over his head, another hot press of lips dropping to his collarbone, “a little overprotective,” calloused fingertips skate over Lance’s spine, pushing and prodding and teasing him into rocking his hips forward, and he gasps out into the space between them, throwing his hands up to cup around Hunk’s neck.

“Besides,” Hunk continues, licking up into Lance’s parted mouth, “when you really care about someone,” he reaches down to undo Lance’s belt, “you do what you can,” a warm palm slips into the back of Lance’s pants, cupping the swell of his left cheek and roughly shoving him forward, grinding their groins together harder and pulling twin moans from their mouths, “t-to see them safe and- _ungh_ -and happy,” he finishes, smoothing his unoccupied hand down Lance’s chest and over his abs to play with the hair peeking over the elastic of Lance’s underwear.

Lance smiles, dragging his hands down Hunk’s chest to undo his jeans. Hunk stands up from the couch, and Lance throws his legs around his hips, allowing his husband to cart him across the room and toss him down on their bed. Hunk tugs Lance’s pants down and off swiftly, tossing them off somewhere behind him, and turns his attention to his own. He gets them down to his ankles, but ends up with his right foot caught up in them, tripping and hopping around the edge of the bed until Lance takes pity on him and reaches out, steadying him with a hand on his hip and snorting in laughter.

Hunk finally relieves himself of the fiendish piece of clothing, grumbling and cursing. He looks back up at Lance, and the expression of needwant _love_ makes Lance feel like his spine is gonna melt and leak right out through his asshole, which would be so unfortunate right now. He really needs that. Well, he needs both.

Hunk crouches down over him on the bed, one knee on each side of his thighs, caging him in with his palms braced on either side of Lance’s shoulders. He leans forward, skating his nose across Lance’s cheek, down his jaw, and back up, settling his lips right next to his ear. His brown eyes burn holes into Lance’s blue, and his lips just barely graze Lance’s ear as he whispers, “Can I make you happy, honey?”

Lance nods fervently, stroking one of his hands against his cheek. “You always make me happy, baby.”

Hunk hums his pleased approval and pushes himself back up, dragging a hand down Lance’s stomach and bringing it to rest on the erection that, in Lance’s opinion, he’s been doing an _excellent_ job of ignoring. Lance keens at the contact and Hunk smiles softly down at him, palming him firmly through the fabric of his underwear. Lance whines up at him, lifting his hips from the bed and grinding into his hand.

“C’mon baby, don’t tease.”

Hunk grins, leaning forward. “Why not? That’s all _you_ ever do.”

Lances whines again, but this time Hunk catches it in his mouth, stealing his breath with a deeper kiss. He stands from the bed to grab their lube from the bedside table. Lance takes advantage of his opportunity - he might be a tease, but he’s no slouch - to strip his underwear off lightning fast, so that when Hunk turns around, it’s _his_ turn to have the breath stolen from his lungs. Lance smirks up at his husband and quirks his pointer finger at him.

“Come hither, big boy.”

Hunk sucks in a sharp breath and makes his way back to their bed, where he belongs thankyouverymuch, losing the rest of his clothes as he moves. When he finally, _finally_ drops the bottle on the sheets and puts a knee in between Lance’s legs, Lance reaches up and tugs him down by the scruff of the neck. Hunk growls low and hungry, peppering Lance’s mouth with electric kisses, and slowly reaches down between their bodies.

Overhead, the Kaiju alarm shrieks its warning, filling their room with the blare of sirens and the pulse of orange flashers.

“MOTHERFUCKER,” Lance screams, Hunk groaning and rolling off of him.

 

+++

 

The Kaiju alarm blares overhead, and Shiro tugs Keith to his feet.

“Let’s go to control. I want you to see this from up top.”

Keith nods his assent, and Shiro takes off toward the elevator, Keith hot on his heels. They don’t say anything as they walk, which suits Shiro just fine. He needs the few minutes to calm himself down after their impromptu spar. Keith was on the verge of telling him...well, telling him _something_ , so naturally he has to be interrupted. What was it about his family that he was going to say? Did they not support him? Were they abusive? Were they lost?

Shiro could feel his mind spinning off in all directions, wildly casting nets and dragging up all sorts of monsters. The elevator door opens up on the main deck, and Shiro sucks in a calming breath. No, no, it couldn’t be anything so drastic, could it? Did Keith’s family have anything to do with his behavior toward the end of his Academy tenure? Shiro sincerely hopes he’ll find out. He’d like to be a person Keith can trust.

They reach the command room, and Shiro swipes his i.d. The doors swish open, revealing a flurry of activity - navigators punching in coordinates, battle programmers keeping an eye on the current HUD and ensuring smooth interfacing between the Jaegers and command, Shay, the Neural Bridge Operator for both the Paladin Danger and The Castle is settling into her place and loading in their current drift profiles. She greets both sets of pilots as they settle into their Conn-Pods.

“Good morning, my lovely earth-saving beauties! Hope you’re ready for a live one! I’m hearing we’ve got ourselves another Mutavore!”

“Son of a bitch!” Lance shouts back. “I got cockblocked by a fucking alien lizard jerk, and we couldn’t even get something _new_?!”

“Lance, babe,” Hunk interjects, “Maybe don’t, y’know, tell the whole station our business?”

“Oh please,” answers Lance conversationally, “we’re _married_ , they all know! Besides, we aren’t the only interesting duo around these days.”

Shay spins her chair around and waggles her eyebrows at Shiro. He immediately averts his eyes and pretends to find the work station in front of him extremely interesting. Keith makes an interesting sound from beside him.

“Yes, well as interesting as I’m sure we all find your love lives to be,” says Allura, “we’re doing just fine over here, Shay. I hope you’re well?”

“Oh yes, I am, thank you Allura!” Shay calls back, spinning her chair back around to her station. “We’re just waiting for the go ahead, and I’ll get you all out there kicking lizard ass in no time!”

Shiro tugs Keith off to the side of the room, hoping that watching the K-Watch officer on deck send the activation signals out to the Danger and Castle will provide a good enough distraction from Lance and his comments. He points down at the screen.

“This is where the Jaegers get their go. K-Watch keeps an eye on the breach, and when we’re ready to launch, the reporting officer activates the bots. See that box right there?”

Shiro points down to a square on the bottom left of the screen, lit up yellow and blinking.

“Yeah, I see it,” Keith replies, eyebrows furrowed in concentration. _Ah, he’s taking mental notes_.

“That,” says Shiro, “is the current status of the Rangers. Red when they’re unsuited, green when they’re ready.”

“They’re yellow,” Keith points out.

“They’re in the relay-gel process. While the gel finishes spreading through the suit, they light up yellow. It’s a sort of countdown.”

“Ah.”

“It’s like that because once, back in the day, a Ranger team was sent out without the relay gel fully spread, and it was...not great,” Matt Holt says, poking his head between them. Keith jumps from the sudden intrusion, but Shiro’s long used to any one of the Holts making a surprise appearance at any given moment in his day. Shiro gives Matt a mild smile.

“And what are you doing up here, Matt? You bring Katie?”

“I _told you_ to stop calling me that!” Pidge shouts from the doorway.

“Let me rephrase that,” Shiro says with a smile. “Did you _have_ to bring Katie?”

“HEY!”

Shiro laughs and ducks from the pen that flies at his head.

“Anyway,” Pidge says, stepping up to join them, “we’re here because it’s been ages since both Jaegers have been home at the same time. We wanna see this one!”

She smiles up at Shiro and he ruffles her hair. “Alright, just don’t get your Kaiju groupie germs all over everything, alright?”

“YOU KNOW WHAT-”

The command room’s doors slide open once more, and in strides the Marshall, everyone snapping to attention at his presence.

“Marshall on deck!” announces Shay to the room at large and to both sets of Rangers.

“At ease,” announces Iverson. “Are we set to go?”

“All set!” replies the K-Watch officer.

“Drop them.”

“Alright, Rangers,” Shay says, engaging the pilot drop sequence, “prepare to drop!”

“Ready to drop!” Lance calls.

“Ready to drop!” shouts Hunk.

“Prepared for drop!” shout Allura and Coran at the same time.

“Dropping Conn-Pods,” Shay reports, hitting the button on-screen.

Everyone in the room watches the status screen as the Conn-Pods drop into place atop their Jaegers, final securing sequences engaging and locking them into place. The command HUD flashes their ready status.

“Pod-link confirmed,” Shay announces. “Engaging pilot-to-pilot sequence!”

_“Pilot-to-pilot connection protocol sequence engaged.”_

On the live-feed monitors, everyone watches as the Jaeger launch bays clear out, the machinery and support scaffolding pulling away.

“Ready for neural, Marshall,” Shay says, eyeing the protocol’s process.

“Rangers, this is Marshall Iverson, prepare for neural handshake.”

“Starting in fifteen seconds!” Shay begins the count. “Fourteen...thirteen...twelve...eleven…”

Shiro looks to his side, watching Keith take everything in. He’s got a lock of hair dangling in front of his eyes, just barely brushing the tip of his nose. That has to be annoying. Shiro would find it annoying. He wonders if he should just reach out and move it aside for him. You know, just casually sweep his bangs out of the way of his eyes in a not-at-all-romantic type of gesture. It would be for safety purposes, really.

Keith notices him staring and looks up at him, a question in his eyes. Shiro shakes himself out of his aside.

“What do you think so far?”

“They never really taught us this stuff in school,” he answers. “I mean, not unless this was what we wanted to do.”

“Yeah,” Shiro replies, “I learned a lot when I started coming up here more often.”

Keith crosses his arms over his chest and leans forward a bit. “Was this after…?”

His question trails off, but Shiro knows what he’s asking.

“Yeah. It took me a long time. For a while, I couldn’t even think of this place without shaking. The thing was, though, I just ended up sitting around on base doing nothing. They gave me leave, but I couldn’t _leave_. I had the new arm, and nowhere else to go, so I just was here. Stewing. After a while, I needed a distraction, you know?”

Keith hums in acknowledgement. That’s something Shiro appreciates about him. He lets him speak. He doesn’t try to interrupt to prove how much he “gets it,” he doesn’t try to over-empathise with Shiro’s experiences, he just lets him go. So he feels encouraged that Keith will really listen when he continues.

“I think the Marshall knew how bad I was getting, because he’s the one that suggested I start coming up here. He thought a new perspective would do me some good.”

Keith cocks his head to the side. “Did it?”

“Hmm, I think so. It’s eye opening to see things from both sides.”

“Ahh.”

_“Four pilots engaged in two neural bridges.”_

“Both neural handshakes are strong and holding!” calls Shay. “Both drifts are connected and good to go!”

The four neural wavelengths on the control HUD have merged together into two distinct forms, Paladin Danger’s on top and The Castle’s on bottom.

“Those,” Shiro points at them, “are the Ranger’s brains at work.”

“You’ll note,” Pidge pipes up from the back of the room, “that Lance’s stream is a teeeeeensy bit smaller than the rest.”

Keith snorts at her joke and Matt rolls his eyes.

The Rangers call out their calibrations, and everything is ready for launch. Truthfully, this is Shiro’s favorite part of watching the Jaegers go to work. It’s always awe-inspiring, being able to watch physical proof of the Ranger’s bonds coming together. It’s a tangible, viewable symbol of a feeling that seems so spiritual when you’re standing in it. Shiro thinks back to the last time he felt that sensation and closes his eyes. The sense of mourning isn’t so great these days. It tugs less at the back of his mind. But it’s always there, his constant companion. His therapist calls it an emotional ghost. A part of him died that day, and it haunts him. The point isn’t to exorcise it, it’s to learn to live harmoniously with the presence. Easier said than done, he thinks, but he’s getting there. It’s taken time, but he’s getting there.

“You okay?” Keith asks, and Shiro comes back to the present, opening his eyes.

“Rangers,” the Marshall imparts, the same as always, “Your orders are to hold the miracle mile off Vladivostok, do you copy?”

The pilots copy their assent and the command room falls into silence as they take off into the sea, Shay wishing them well as they go.

“Takashi?” Keith lays his hand on Shiro’s elbow. “Are you alright?”

Shiro looks down at the slim fingers gently laid across his arm. Despite the hard work he’s been doing along multiple Wall sites for the past years, his hands are soft and warm. They feel right against his skin. They feel like they belong there. Like they’ve always belonged.

“Yeah,” Shiro says. “I’ll be alright.”

Keith smiles faintly and withdraws his touch, turning his attention to the screens displaying the Jaeger’s point of view just as they reach the Mutavore. Shiro tries his best not to wilt at the loss of contact. It’s stupid, really. They’ve known each other for mere days. Shiro shouldn’t be so drawn, so attached to the idea of Keith Kogane. It’s abrupt and confusing. With Sven, it took time to form the kind of itch Shiro feels under his skin when he thinks about climbing in his Jaeger. They took weeks to get comfortable with each other, to skate around the most embarrassing parts of their minds to be able to trust one another and fall into step. Keith feels like someone Shiro could hand the full bundle of his history over to without a second thought and know that it would be treated with gloved hands - sure but gentle.

To be fair, Shiro never wanted to shove Sven in the closest dark room and manhandle him, but it is what it is.

“I’ve always wondered what this would look like from a Ranger’s angle,” Keith admits quietly. “It-It’s really something.”

“It’s even better in person,” Shiro answers. He’s never been a master of delicacy, but this feels pretty heavy-handed, even for himself. Still, he needs Keith. The only way back to Black is with a partner he can trust, and Keith has _got_ to be that partner.

On the screens, the Paladin Danger delivers a harsh blow to the Kaiju’s face, tearing into it with their chain sword and spraying out, raining over the ocean. The Castle swings around behind it, delivering a powerful kick to its back, sending the monster lurching forward. Keith pulls his attention away from the screens and refocuses on Shiro.

“Shiro, I can’t drift.”

They’re little words, really. Four words, fifteen letters. Not even things, just sounds. Vibrations. But the second they drop from Keith’s lips, they sink like stone around them. They pull Keith down to the depths as they fall. His face darkens - eyebrows drawing together, eyes glossing over, the corners of his mouth turning down.

“ _I can’t drift_.”

The Marshall whistles an appreciative sound. Up on the monitors, The Castle swings around the arm it just tore from the Kaiju’s body with a vengeance.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> SPICY HANCE FOREVER!!!


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> a ruse, a reunion, a recollection

_“Common setbacks that can lead to a lack of compatibility is to judge or control memories that jump to mind during the Drifting process. The "modesty reflex" is considered "antithetical" to creating a connection. PPDC psychologists suggest that embarrassment based on sexual memory is the biggest reason algorithm paired trainees cannot sync together. Trust is an implicit part in creating a strong bond between potential partners. Familiarity with a partner makes fostering trust easier where it may be more difficult between strangers. Without trust, the Neural Handshake cannot succeed.”_

_-[PPDC Ranger Training Manual](http://pacificrim.wikia.com/wiki/Drift) _

 

+++

 

There are few certainties on this earth. Death and taxes, etcetera etcetera. More importantly, Katie is convinced, is the certainty that anyone in charge of anything who is _not_ a scientist should not be allowed to be in charge of anything at all. Granted, she’s a bit biased, but the point still stands, a pillar of truth in shaky times.

Another certainty, that perhaps she should have accounted for, is the fact that math is _hard_ when you’re running on fumes and increasing restrictions and roughly eighteen cups of coffee.

“Matty, come here please.”

Matt bangs his head on the bottom of the table he’s under - they’ve really gotta look into why he keeps doing that - and crosses the room to her side.

“What’s up, tiny?”

Katie pulls her glasses off, setting them to the side and rubbing at the bridge of her nose. It’s been a long couple of days, but an even longer few years, so she supposes the fatigue is simply par for the course at this point. Although, she’s been feeling some type of way lately. Like she’s on the verge of something new, and if she could just break through to the other side, she could finally snatch up some sort of rest. Pushing those frustrations away, she slides her notebook over to Matt.

“Take a look at this. Does that look okay to you? Honestly, all my numbers are blurring together at this point.”

Matt reads over her calculations, finger trained and following the flow down the pages.

“Katie, wait a second, this isn’t-is this it?”

She sighs, cleaning the lenses of her glasses and propping them back on her face. The worst part of this war is the strain it’s put on her brother. She sees it in the hunch of his shoulders every time they discuss a new breach event. She feels it in the tension that bleeds from him when he sees how tired and beaten down Shiro looks. She knows it in the set of his jaw every time the Marshall soundly rejects another of their propositions.

It’s not just physical things these battles take away, and it’s not just from soldiers.

“It’s what he asked me for, Matt,” she says simply. “I can’t just not do it.”

“Yeah, but we can’t just let go of-”

The lab door opening interrupts his point, and Katie looks up at him with, what she hopes anyway, is her very best _yeah, I fucking know but can you just let it go for two goddamn seconds and then I’ll clue you in to what the fuck is UP_ face. She gives him that face a lot. He should know it by now. Turns out he does, because his own face dawns in recognition and he nods in her direction before turning around.

“Marshall Iverson!” he greets brightly.

The one thing that always astounds Katie the most about her brother is the fact that he can turn literally any mood around. Oh word, there are giant lizard monsters from the great beyond attacking our world? Yeah, cool, I’ll just crack a smile and suggest digging in its guts! What’s that, you say? One of my best friends just lost his drift partner and had his arm torn off in the same day? Sure thing, I’ll just tell some terrible knock knock jokes to lighten the mood. Ah, my sister wants me to shut the hell up again because the Marshall just walked into the room and if he hears even a single shred of our conversation, we’ll both be torn ass-from-elbow? _Well, heeelllooooo_ , mister Marshall, sir!

“Holt,” the Marshall replies in a clipped tone. He turns his attention over to Katie.

“Other Holt.”

“Marshall,” she replies, grabbing her notebook up from the desk.

“I hear you’ve got something for me?”

“Yes, sir. I’ve finished up the work, and I think we’ve got a good prelim plan for dropping a payload into the throat.”

Katie hands her notes over to Iverson, who gives them a perfunctory glance. If she didn’t know any better, she would say he looks a little relieved, but she does know better. Even so, she can’t help feeling like the news makes him seem a little lighter.

“And you’re sure?” he asks, looking between Katie and Matt.

“Within a negligible degree of certainty, yes,” she answers, crossing her arms proudly over her chest. “You drop a payload of that exact size at that exact location, and we should see a result.”

Matt may be good at diverting, but Katie is good at this. Talking around things just enough to give herself some leeway has always been a skill she’s possessed. Yes, we’ll see a result. But there’s no telling _what_ result, really, even though she has a hunch. Well, there is a way of telling, but Katie needs to reserve that for later.

“Very well,” the Marshall concludes, snapping the notebook closed. “I’ll just get this over to the boys in the weapons lab, and we’ll get to work.”

With that, he turns on a heel and strides out of the room. Katie waits an extra three minutes, just to make sure he’s well and truly gone before turning to look her brother dead in the eye, expression blazing.

“I’m drifting with that brain.”

A slow smiles unfurls across Matt’s face.

“I can have it ready in two days.”

 

+++

 

It’s been a couple days since Shiro’s seen Keith around. He feels the absence like a weight around his neck. Like the weight of the words that sent Keith spiraling out of his atmosphere. He still sees the ghost of the moment play across his eyelids when he closes them.

Keith’s eyes, sad and shining. His unmarred skin, pale and drawn in the flickering flashes of the holo-screen displays lit up with the livestreams of the fight raging outside in the bay. His expression regretful and torn. In the darkness of the control room, where the only thing to help see was the colors lighting up the HUDs of multiple workstations, Keith looked a sickly green.

The worst part of it all is the fact that Shiro’s _been there_. He knows that feeling. He knows that fear. And yet, he couldn’t bring himself to say or do anything when Keith turned tail and ran. Because no matter how much Shiro wants this to work, no matter how much he hopes this can happen, he understands. He knows it intimately. He feels that feeling on a cellular level every day that he opens his eyes in a cramped metal bunk on a cramped metal base in a cramped metal existence.

The thing is, though, that he doesn’t really want to get it anymore. He doesn’t think he should have to just stand by and be patient any longer. Everyone has their battles, everyone has their weaknesses. Shiro’s been through some of the greatest pain any living being could go through. He’s been torn apart, he’s been damaged, the very fabric of himself as a human has been irrevocably ripped and patched up again, a quilt that he doesn’t quite remember sewing. He wants to lay that warmth at someone else’s feet again.

He gets Keith’s nerves, he gets his suffering. No one tragedy is greater than another. No one person’s pain is more intense or worthy of attention. At the very core of him, Shiro is an understanding soul.

He’s also a selfish one.

He doesn’t often act on his own desires. He lets the good of the many outweigh the needs of his one. This time, though, he’s ready to reach out and take what’s his. The time for hanging back is over. The PPDC is soon to lose funding to a useless monument of steel and rust. The Marshall is looking to turn over his Jaeger, _his_ _baby_ , to someone else who just doesn’t know her like he does. Someone who could never treasure her like he can.

There’s only one other person on this base that he thinks, no, _knows_ would be capable of that. He just needs to convince him.

Shiro flops around on his bed, unable to sleep although his brain feels sludgy and clouded and tired. Sighing, he sits up and runs his hand through his unruly hair. He jams his feet in his boots and grabs his jacket. The next best thing to sleep is a long walk, so that’s what he’ll do.

He doesn’t pay attention to where he wanders, he rarely ever does. He just trusts his feet to carry him where he needs to go. This evening, it seems they need to take him to the Shatterdome. They need to take him to _her_. He pads into Black’s hangar, light-footed and small, stepping with the reverence of a loyal subject coming to prostrate themselves at the feet of their most precious god. It’s the first time he’s visited since the fight. It’s been over three years.

He lays his hand against the Black Lion’s foot, looking up across the broad expanse of her. Unbidden, tears spring to his eyes, memories of his last day inside rushing through his memory. Memories of his partner’s face, of their twin terror, of an unforgiving ocean. His lungs freeze up the same as they did when his lifeless body hit the surface of that cruel water.

“You look good,” he chokes out, salty regret spilling over his face. She does. They’ve had plenty of time to fix her up, good as new - and she is. Better than new, he’d say. It seems that Hunk’s been playing with the J-Science team. His signature is all over some of the upgrades Shiro can spot from down here on the ground. Her paint is shiny and unmarred - a slight sparkle to it that wasn’t there before. He lays his forehead against the cold metal in front of him.

“I’ve missed you,” he whispers into her foot.

“She’s missed you, too, buddy,” Hunk says lowly from behind him, and Shiro doesn’t even have it in him to react. He’s so tired. His soul is so weary. His very being is exhausted from being so empty. He’s ready to refill it again. He needs to feel her fire. A heavy hand lands on his shoulder, and he turns his head to look at the man standing next to him.

If there’s one thing Hunk has always been good at, it’s not making a huge deal of an emotional scene. Instead, he just stands there, one hand on Shiro’s shoulder, the other, shielding his eyes from the the bright lamp-light of the hangar as he cranes his head back to look over the Jaeger before him. Shiro sucks in a few shuddering, steadying breaths, and in the quiet of the night, he slowly feels his threads reconnecting. He places his other hand on the Lion and pushes himself back, skimming his fingertips along the metal hull of her and walking a slow circle around her leg.

Hunk doesn’t follow, he just stands still and lets Shiro regard her, reintroduce himself, become familiar again with the machine that he hopes beyond all hope that he can climb into again someday soon. He’s ready.

“Lance is pissed that he’s not your drift partner, I think. I dunno whether or not I should be jealous of you.”

Shiro laughs out into the ringing silence of the Shatterdome, breaking himself out of his emotional stupor.

“Well, if it helps, Hunk, I don’t think I could do for him what you can.”

“That’s almost gross, but thank you.”

“Oh trust me,” Shiro assures him with a smile, “it’s gross.”

Hunk laughs this time, and crosses the bay to clap a hand on Shiro’s shoulder again. “You wanna hear about all the cool shit she’s got now?”

“I would love nothing more.”

Hunk smiles, and for the first time in three years, Shiro feels at ease in the presence of a Jaeger.

 

+++

 

It’s the ass-crack of dawn when the message comes through Lance’s comm tablet: _Rangers, report to Command Conference Room B at 0800 hours._

It’s been a hell of a long time since they’re been ordered to a conference room. In fact, the last time Lance remembers being called into one, it was when he and Hunk got stationed here and were given twelve hours to prepare to move. Lance swears to god, if they have to pack all their shit up like that again, he’s gonna lose it. He sits up in bed to swipe through to the message, wondering if there are any attachments expounding on the mysterious summons. Hunk stirs next to him, a light snore falling from parted lips as he stumbles into consciousness.

“MmmmL’nce? Babe?”

Lance smiles down at his partner, watching silently as he rubs the heels of two large hands into his eyes to wipe the sleep away. He drops a hand of his own from the side of his tablet to thread through Hunk’s hair, catching and working through the light tangles gained from a night of flopping around on their pillows.

“Good morning, beautiful,” Lance whispers. It’s still dark in their room, and they don’t have to report for another three hours. They’re always so busy anymore that he rarely gets the chance to glimpse his husband in these moments. These are the most precious, the most cherished, the most pure. He’d never admit to being this soppy, but the most mundane things about his husband make him feel so lucky.

Hunk is always so soft in the morning. Compliments make him blush, body heat makes him squirm, the right touches make him sigh and melt. His cheeks turn the slightest bit ruddy at Lance’s greeting and he squints his eyes up at the tablet.

“Somethin’ important on that thing?”

“Yeah, they need to see us in conference at 8.”

“Hmmm,” Hunk acknowledges around a yawn, stretching an arm out to wrap around Lance’s waist. “Then I guess we’d better get up soon?”

“Nah,” Lance replies, stroking a hand down his husband’s blanket-warm side, “we got a couple hours.”

“Well, in that case,” Hunk grumbles, tugging Lance down to the sheets, “get your ass back down here.”

Lance laughs and lets himself be dragged back into comfortable slumber for just a little while longer.

At 0800 hours precisely, the Garrett-McClains stroll into Control Conference Room B and settle down across from Coran and Allura. They look just as confused about being seated in the room as Lance feels, so at least there’s that. Nobody says a word, it’s still way too early for conjecture of any type, so they just sit around the table, waiting, until the Marshall strides in, followed the Holt siblings.

“Ah,” says Allura, as if she suddenly understands.

The Marshall stands at the head of the table with a Holt flanking each side and begins without preamble.

“We think we’ve found a way to destroy it.”

Nobody in the room reacts as the news sinks in. They can destroy it. _They_ _can destroy_ _it_. It. They all know what the it is. It’s the only it they’ve spoken about for years now. Lance wants to whoop in joy, but he knows better. There’s never resolution without a catch these days. It’s always a big catch, too. A roughly Kaiju-sized catch.

“So what’s the catch?” Lance blurts.

The Marshall looks down his nose at Lance, a little irritated, but not totally surprised, and gestures to Pidge. She steps forward, pushing her glasses up the bridge of her nose and opening a notebook.

“You’ll have to do it,” she says dramatically.

“Well no duh, we’ll have to do it, that’s why you brought us here,” Lance retorts. “I _mean_ , what’s the big, bad, scary catch that’s going to make us not wanna do this?”

Pidge and Matt share a meaningful look. The Marshall looks like he regrets the very day he ever met Lance. It’s fair, he thinks, because sometimes he agrees.

“You’re going to deliver a nuclear payload directly into the breach,” Matt says.

“In...one hour,” Pidge finishes, checking her watch.

“Aaaaand, boom goes the dynamite,” Lance whispers to himself.

“Boom goes the nuke, more like,” Hunk whispers back, and Lance has to clamp a hand over his mouth to muffle his snort.

“And just _why_ did you wait to inform us of this plan until an hour before we are to carry it out?” Allura demands. For once, her weighty tone swings for a target they can all agree on, and Lance enjoys watching the three at the head of the room recoil from it slightly.

“The math-” Pidge starts.

“Ah, of course! The math!” Coran agrees. “Wily things, numbers! They very often change at the drop of a hat!”

The fun thing about Coran is that you never can tell if he’s joking or not. His accent can make it difficult to discern his true inflection, and his tendency toward theatrics always adds an extra flourish that can make his intentions doubly difficult to figure out. Lance loves it. Immensely. He laces his fingers together and leans his chin on them, elbows propped up on the table. It’s difficult, but he tries his very best to school his features into an innocently inquisitive expression.

Pidge looks murderous.

“If you would let me finish,” she glares across the table, flipping around to a particular page in her notebook. “The math was difficult to get absolutely correct because, for some reason, the waves from the breach keep changing. I’m sure you’ve noticed, the rate at which these events are speeding up is making it increasingly difficult for _anyone_ to nail down any sort of pattern. I’ve also been running into some...anomalies. I needed to wait until last night to make sure I was okay with sending you out to this. I don’t want more blood spilled for no reason.”

Her passion sobers the table. Coran clears his throat.

“Yes, well, I apologize if I sounded snide, my dear.”

Allura places her hand on his and leans forward. “Katie, what do we do?”

“The Castle will be fitted with a nuclear payload to deliver to the breach. Paladin Danger will run protection just in case. We’re sending you now because we’ll have surprise on our side. The next event shouldn’t occur for another handful of days, so there should be no activity around the site. You can get right in and right back out relatively safely.”

“How exactly are we going to handle the explosion, though? Like, who’s controlling the bomb?” Hunk asks.

“You are,” Matt answers. “The Castle will handle the drop, but the Danger will handle the detonation procedure. That way, you can watch each other’s backs, and the pressure of the task will be more evenly spread between the two Jaegers.”

The Marshall steps forward. “Rangers, I don’t think I need to tell you how important this mission is. If we’re successful today, we can end this war.”

That sounds good as hell to Lance.

“Alright then!” he announces, standing from his seat to lead the way to the Shatterdome. “Let’s do this thing!”

As the teams get suited up and stabilized in their drifts, Lance flips on the inter-Jaeger comm channel.

“You guys ready over there?”

“Ready as I believe we’ll ever be!” Allura affirms.

“Alright, then, Castle, let’s hit this thing quick and get back home!”

_“Four pilots engaged in two neural bridges”_

“Rangers,” the Marshall speaks lowly across the comm, the gravity of the mission tinging the tone of his voice, “Your orders are to deliver that payload directly into the breach and detonate upon order, do you copy?”

“Right!” Allura and Coran confirm through the comm.

“Copy!” Lance and Hunk shout in unison.

“Hey guys, it’s Pidge! I’m gonna guide you through this one, so just wait until I give you the go-ahead for each step, okay? We’re looking clear out there, so you shouldn’t have any problems getting this thing done!”

“Sound great, Pidge,” Allura replies.

“Hey, Pidge, does this make you Marshall now?” Lance asks, wiggling his eyebrows at no one. Hunk snorts beside him.

“Lance, please don-”

“Ranger Garrett-McClain, you do realize you will eventually be _returning_ back to base, yes?” the Marshall cuts in.

Okay, so, yes Lance knows that, but he also may have forgotten that in the moment. He gulps.

“Uh, yeah. Yes, I realize that.”

“Then perhaps you can treat this mission bearing that in mind,” the Marshall says, voice strained.

“Sorry, sir. I will, sir.”

“Fantastic,” the Marshall deadpans. “Alright, Rangers, good luck out there. This very well may be the day you make history.”

Hunk shoots a grin at Lance, and the feeling of prideful assurance that floats in their drift tightens and strengthens between them. Suddenly, Hunk conjures up a brief memory, nothing huge, not enough to chase after, but it’s a moment from before everything went to shit. They had just started seriously dating, and one summer before college, they’d decided to take a trip out to the beach. The memory is just a little thing, a small chunk of an afternoon spent under an umbrella drinking fruity cocktails, but it’s full of pleasure and relaxation.

 _Yeah_ , he pushes through the drift, _yeah I’d like that again, too._

_When we’re done._

_When we’re done._

_Right, then_.

They close the lid on the memory and march out to sea, following The Castle’s lead. The breach is always surprisingly close to shore, no matter how many times they have to venture out to it - no more than twenty miles or so off the coast - but this time, it feels light years away. The Jaeger trudges through the deep ocean in silence, taut determination singing through the drift. If Lance was a betting man, he’d put twenty down on The Castle’s Ranger team feeling the same.

“When you’re ready, Castle, you can engage the bomb,” Pidge instructs.

“Copy! Alright boys, we’re three clicks away,” Allura calls across the comms. “I’m going to prepare the payload for drop!”

“We’ve got you, Castle!” Hunk confirms.

Lance and Hunk both watch through their HUD as the bomb extends from the storage hatch of The Castle, coming to life as the Jaeger moves forward.

“Two clicks!” Coran calls.

The drop arm extends from The Castle’s hatch, and the clips locking the bomb in place click into release position.

“One click!”

“Everything looks good from my end, guys. You can proceed when ready,” Pidge says with authority. A little zing of affection and pride zings through their drift and Lance thinks, _yeah, babe, I’m proud of her, too._

The Castle comes to a stop on the edge of the breach canyon. Lance reaches out to the Danger’s HUD, engaging their underwater drive. The Jaeger whirs and groans around them as it battens down all hatches, and engages the waterproofing systems. Lance glances up at their video stream to see that The Castle is already prepared for dive.

“Dive mode confirmed,” Allura announces. “Preparing for approach.”

“Copy,” confirms Lance. He and Hunk nod at each other, and follow The Castle below the water’s surface. Their Jaeger’s dive fans switch on, shooting flurries of bubbles out behind them as they go, and they slowly make their way down to the space-time rift that’s caused them so much trouble these past years.

It’s easy to forget how objectively beautiful it is. Even though it’s caused so much pain and destruction, the actual tear itself is a sight to behold. If you didn’t know better, you would say it’s an underwater volcano. A jagged crack, molten lava red and yellow, launching geysers off from deep within. The difference here is that it floats above the ocean floor, seemingly suspended by nothing at all. It also crackles with static energy, lightning bolts of blue light, hinting at the otherworldly inhabitants launched from within. When people speak of terrifying beauty, Lance thinks, they don’t even know the half. _T_ _his_ is the truest example he’s ever witnessed.

“You’re holding steady!” Pidge calls from control. “The breach is unoccupied, you can drop the payload when you have it charged.”

“Alright, then. Castle approaching breach, payload charged and ready for drop.”

“Copy, Castle. Be careful over there,” Hunk acknowledges.

“Never you worry, son! You just get ready to flip the switch!” Coran shouts.

Hunk laughs and reaches out to the HUD, pushing the button to unlock the detonation phase of the bomb. “Payload primed and ready for detonation! Drop at will, Castle!”

“Aye aye!” Allura and Coran call in synch, and if this wasn’t such a serious, potentially world-changing, situation, Lance would laugh out loud at the ridiculousness of them saying it.

The bomb drops from the outstretched arm of the Jaeger directly into the mouth of the breach, and disappears from this plane of existence.

“Alright, Rangers,” Pidge’s voice plays across the comms unit. “Insertion is successful, I’m tracking the payload through the throat right now. Back up about 5 clicks, and I’ll let you know when you can detonate.”

“Copy!” they all shout in unison, and make their way toward shore. There’s a light buzz of thrill singing through the drift, volleying between Lance and Hunk, growing and compounding the more they pass it back and forth. At 5 clicks, both Jaegers stop and turn, regarding the breach from their place in the water.

“Alrighty, Danger. Get ready to blow that sucker up!”

“We gotcha, Pidge!” Lance calls, excitement vibrating through his bones. Hunk’s hand hovers over the detonation button.

“In 3...2...1...NOW!” Pidge shouts, and Hunk slams his hand straight through the hologram of the HUD in his haste to follow her order. The ocean floor rumbles beneath them as the charges detonate, waves tossed up all around their Jaegers, what few fish remain in the area scurrying through the water away from the site. Everything around them churns with bubbles and froth and sound until finally, the aftershocks die out, the water stills, and

the breach remains.

 

+++

 

His tablet sounding off from his nightstand wakes Keith up from his nap. He silences it - he needs to be back in the Kwoon in six hours, so he can’t afford any distractions. His tablet vibrates instead of beeping. Goddammit, whoever programmed these things is an absolute asshole.

Keith grabs it and squints at the screen.

 **_Shirogane.T_ ** _\- Are you awake?_

 **_Shirogane.T_ ** _\- If so, could you meet me in the Kwoon before spar time? I’d like to talk to you._

Keith closes his eyes and rolls onto his back, letting the tablet fall onto his chest. Takashi Shirogane is one insistent man, he’ll give him that. He’s also still a great source of confusion for Keith. There are a lot of things Keith thinks about him. Some of them are extremely inconvenient. His tablet vibrates on his chest.

 **_Shirogane.T_ ** _\- Did you know these tablets have read receipts?_

 **_Shirogane.T_ ** _\- I know you got my messages._

 **_Shirogane.T_ ** _\- Please come see me. I won’t take up much of your time._

 **_Kogane. K_ ** _\- Fine._

Keith sighs, sitting up and swinging his leg over the side of the bed. He shivers as his feet make contact with the cold floor and scrubs has hands across his face. Whatever Takashi wants, he hopes it’s important enough to interrupt his rest. If he can’t partner up with him, then his other sparring partners deserve his best. At the very least, that’s something he’s come to accept in the past few days. His tablet vibrates one more time and he glances down at it.

 **_Shirogane. T_ ** _\- Wear sparring clothes._

Fuck.

Keith steps silently into the Kwoon twenty minutes later. The lights are only half-on, bathing the room in a muted light, dust motes dancing through the air. There’s nothing quite so peaceful as a sparring floor at midnight. When he was still in school, Keith would very often visit the gym late at night when he couldn’t sleep. It’s a strange feeling for sleeplessness to not be the reason he’s walking into one now.

He shakes himself from his thoughts and looks up as he pushes through the doors, but he stops short, breath hitching in his throat, when his eyes land on the reason he’s here. Takashi stands, center mat, with his hands laced behind his back, watching expectantly as Keith crosses the entry to the room. Soft moonlight streams in loose shafts through the windows, bathing him in a warm glow. His skin and hair shines with it. He looks utterly ethereal in a place where everything is dingy and worn, inside and out, including the people.

Shiro’s face is smooth, a perfect picture of serenity.

“Keith,” he says, reaching a hand out in greeting. “How are you feeling?”

“I’m fine,” Keith answers, removing his shoes and stepping forward onto the mat. “Why am I here?”

“I thought we could talk before you spar this morning.”

“You brought me here to spar. What do we need to talk about?”

“I dunno,” he answers, raising an eyebrow coyly. “Things.”

“Things,” Keith deadpans.

“Y’know. Stuff.”

“Stuff.”

Shiro smiles radiantly and sinks his stance a bit, prowling around Keith in a circle. Keith rolls his eyes. “I don’t see how sparring is conducive to us talking.”

“Really? We’ve had some of our best conversations throwing hands, don’t you think?”

Keith rolls his eyes again. “I’d hardly call those conversations.”

“I’d disagree.”

The only notice Keith gets is a sparkle in Shiro’s eyes before he lunges forward, easily sweeping him down to the floor.

“Well that’s not fair,” Keith mutters, rolling out from under Shiro’s weak pin and hopping back up to his feet. They prowl each other this time, slow circles, like they seem to end up doing a lot. If this is the flow all of their fights are going to take, Keith is going to need to get something for the dizziness. “I didn’t come here so you could ambush me.”

Shiro smiles again. “You came here because I asked.”

“Technically, you’re my commanding officer. I kind of...couldn’t not.”

Keith strikes out, a sharp left jab aimed for Shiro’s chest, but Shiro’s quick. He catches it, pushing Keith’s arm down and pinning him face first on the floor mats.

“C’mon,” Keith groans.

“You’re distracted,” Shiro notes, twisting Keith’s arm back further. “You’re not giving me your full attention.”

“I’m _trying_ to reserve my energy since I have to do this again later,” Keith spits. “Can I get up now?”

“I don’t see why,” Shiro says thoughtfully, leaning further into the hold.

“Why what?!” Keith demands. His cheek is going numb from being pressed into the floor and he’s already over it.

“Why you’re reserving your energy. You’ve found a partner already. Why waste everyone’s time?”

Shiro finally lets Keith up, extending a hand to help him up from the floor. Keith’s getting annoyed now, though. He bats it away and stands of his own volition.

“You and I both know _exactly_ why I’m ‘wasting everyone’s time,’ as you say,” Keith answers, and rushes forward, hooking an ankle behind Shiro’s calf and dragging him forward to his knees. Once he goes down, Keith circles around him, planting a foot in his back and sending him sprawling. “You gotta stop letting me get you like this.”

Shiro laughs, a deep hearty sound, and flips over onto his back. Keith goes to put his foot back down on the floor, but Shiro snatches it from the air and sets it back on himself, dead in the center of his chest.

“Maybe I like letting you get me like this.”

“You gotta stop that shit, too,” Keith snaps back.

Shiro has the audacity to look confused. He cocks his head to the side. His hand is still on Keith’s ankle, and he feels the heat driving straight through the skin, up his leg, deep into the core of him.

“What shit, Keith?”

Shiro’s hand works its way to the back of Keith’s calf, casual and loose, but the touch feels anything but.

“You _know_ what,” Keith hisses through clenched teeth, squeezing his eyes shut. Without warning, Shiro gives a harsh tug, pulling Keith down to the floor and rolling on top of him. He props himself in a perfect plank with both hands on either side of Keith’s head.

“No, Keith. I don’t know what you’re talking about at all.”

“Yes you _do_ , you asshole!”

Shiro looks down at Keith’s mouth, his face dipping down a little closer.

“I think you’re going to have to tell me,” he whispers.

Keith’s body ceases all motor function. He gulps in a dry swallow. Shiro tracks the movement with his eyes.

“The fucking flirting,” Keith mumbles. Shiro drops impossibly close, scanning Keith’s face, warm breath fanning out across his lips.

“Drift with me.”

“I _can’t_.”

“You can’t, or you won’t?”

“Does it matter?”

Keith shoves Shiro away and sits up, curling into himself. He really thought he could get away from it. He should have known better. You don’t share the kind of connection they do without leaping at the chance to chase a drift. But Keith is _scared_. He’s not ready. He knows he needs to be, but the doubt clouding his mind makes it so hard. He’s not sure if he’s really ready to let someone in the way drifting forces you to. He doesn’t even know if he _can_. He doesn’t want to hurt anyone.

“It matters to me,” Shiro answers.

“But why?”

Shiro sighs, running a hand through his hair. He drapes his hands across his knees and tips his head back, looking up at the ceiling.

“You know about the attack that took me down.”

“Yeah.”

“I felt every bit of it. I felt my Jaeger torn apart. I felt Sven - he was my partner, Sven - I felt him pulled from his harness. I felt him die. I felt his terror, and his pain, and then just. Nothing. I-I don’t really know how I managed to get the Lion back to shore. I remember standing up on the beach and seeing blood everywhere. I remember thinking I was already dead. After that, I woke up on a bed with this.”

He lifts his right arm, turning the prosthetic in the light, watching the gleam of the metal.

“Sven was a brother to me. The Lion was...she was everything to us. After the battle, I never went to see her. I couldn’t. They told me the damage was bad and I believed them, but I just couldn’t look for myself.”

Shiro sucks in a shaky breath and ruffles up his white forelock. Keith reaches out, placing a hand on the arm still slung across his knees. Shiro gives him a weak smile, dropping his hand down to cover Keith’s.

“I went and saw her today.” Shiro squeezes Keith’s hand. “First time in over three years.”

Keith raises an eyebrow.

“She’s beautiful. They added a bunch of upgrades. Gave her a new paintjob. She looks mean. Reminds me of you.”

Keith makes an indignant sound low in his throat and Shiro laughs.

“I just mean, she looks mean as hell, and she can be, but I know what’s inside her. I know what she can really do.”

Keith knows this is it. This is the moment where he truly has to decide if he can do this. If he can trust Shiro with his doubts and his truths. This incredible, impossible man sitting in front of him like a child, baring his soul and offering Keith the chance to scrape at his very mind.

“My family died,” Keith whispers. Shiro makes a light noise of understanding. “I-I know it isn’t like what you went through. I was young.”

Shiro squeezes his hand again, urging him onward.

“I wasn’t home. I wasn’t there for them. I was at school stressing over fucking frog biology or whatever bullshit it was at the time, I can’t even remember now. I didn’t even know until the next day. They were crushed, or they drowned, nobody really knows. A Kaiju came for my town. It leveled everything. There were no bodies.”

Keith stops talking and squeezes his eyelids shut, trying to stem the flow of tears he feels prickling at his sinuses. He takes a few deep breaths to steady himself and continues.

“I saw them. Every time I closed my eyes, I saw them dying. I saw them running, or crying, or drowning, or torn apart. I felt them in my heart. They always talk about how you get a bad feeling when bad things happen to people you love, but I didn’t. I never got that feeling. What does that say about me?”

He looks up at Shiro through his bangs. He looks impossibly soft and understanding. Keith can’t handle it. He looks down at the floor.

“That was why I left. I couldn’t pay attention, I got angry all the time, I went into practice drifts and just keep seeing their corpses. So I left. Got a job on the Wall and never looked back.”

“You know it wasn’t your fault,” Shiro says, confirming something Keith already knew. But how do you explain the ghost of guilt? How do you express the regret of being the lone survivor? Keith wasn’t even a survivor, he just happened to have his nose in some books half a world away. Shiro should understand that. He should _know_. Keith looks up at his face again, and sees it there, a shadow. It’s written in the set of his eyes, carved into the furrow between his brows, chiseled in the slight downward turn of the corners of his mouth.

“You know Sven wasn’t yours.”

Shiro wraps his hands around the back of his neck, lacing his fingers together and craning his head forward. He breathes out a heavy breath and looks back up to Keith, eyes glossy with unshed tears.

“Yeah. Yeah, I know. I still feel it, but I know,” he says quietly. “But, Keith, it’s been years for the both of us. We have to try again. We have to do what we can so those deaths aren’t meaningless.”

He’s right. Of course he’s right. It’s terrifying and huge and Keith doesn’t really know where they go from here, but he trusts that Shiro can lead them in the right direction. He believes in him, and he can’t let him down.

“Hmm,” Keith acknowledges. “So now what?”

“Well,” says Shiro carefully, “I guess I need to try talking to the Marshall again.”

“About that,” Keith says, “why doesn’t he want to let us be partners?”

“He’s...protective in his own way. He was the first one to find me on the beach, and he said it wasn’t pretty. I think he just wants to keep me from dealing with those things again. But I can’t imagine letting anyone else pilot Black. She’s too important to me.”

“Well, then I guess we need to go see the Marshall in the morning.”

“That won’t be necessary,” a voice rumbles from the doorway. Keith and Shiro both snap their heads up to see Marshall Iverson step forward from the shadows.

“Marshall,” Shiro respectfully greets, standing at attention. “How, uh, how long have you been here?”

“Long enough.”

Shiro’s shoulders tense up, and Keith can’t help but share the nerves. He stands up, too, taking place at Shiro’s side.

“Relax, boys,” Iverson says. “I’m not here to lecture you. Although, Takashi, you’re not as subtle as you seem to think.”

The string of tension is cut from Shiro and he slumps, laughing lightly. “Marshall, I don’t know what you mean.”

“Son, I don’t think I’ve ever seen the need to pin a sparring opponent as often as you have Kogane here.”

Shiro blushes immediately, the red lighting up his face like a christmas tree.

“Sir, I-”

“Shut it, Shirogane. Kogane,” Iverson addresses, facing Keith.

“Yessir?”

“Can you do this?”

Can he? He’s still not entirely sure, but he sure as hell wants to try.

“There’s only one way to find out, sir.”

The Marshall stares them down for a moment, looking for something, although Keith isn’t sure what entirely. Apparently, he sees what he needs, though.

“Fine. You’ll test drift in two days. Now go get some rest.”

Shiro reaches over, grasping Keith’s hand with the tips of his fingers. His breath comes out in a rush, and it feels like the breeze of a turning tide.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i am VERY excited for the next chapter, y'all.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> the drift

_“During the Drift, pilots will lapse into silence and attempt to keep their mind clear of all thoughts. Random Access Brain Impulse Triggers (or R.A.B.I.T.) are an occurrence wherein one of the pilots latches onto a memory. Focusing on a single memory is discouraged while piloting a Jaeger. The emotions from the memory typically translate into actions for the Jaeger depending on the hemisphere the pilot is calibrated to. A pilot can become trapped in a memory they latch onto regardless of who the memory belongs to.As a result, first time pilots and pilots in general are advised never to "chase the rabbit.”_

_-[PPDC Ranger Training Manual](http://pacificrim.wikia.com/wiki/Drift) _

 

_+++_

 

Shiro awakens the morning of their test drift full of nerves. It’s been a long time since he’s felt the butterflies of uncertainty fluttering through his stomach. His first thought isn’t about that, though.

It’s about Keith.

Bright, fierce, beautiful Keith. This strong, capable, self-doubting man that swept in and secured his place in Shiro’s future. What that place will be is still up for debate, but Shiro knows there’s no way on this (or any) planet that he’ll ever let Keith out of his orbit again. Still, though, his self-doubt is something he’s going to have to push through. Shiro understands the feeling. He feels it every day. Maybe they can shoulder the burden together in the drift.

Maybe they could shoulder the burden together outside of it, too.

Shiro realizes that Keith doesn’t really do feelings. Understandably so, but at this point, the war comes first. Their duty comes first. Wants and desires and fears tend to take a bit of a backseat to the needs of the many. Selfishly, Shiro thinks he’s found a chance to blend the two together for once. He’d really like the chance, anyway.

He rolls out of bed and brews a pot of coffee. Technically, he isn’t supposed to do this. A drift is supposed to be entered into in the purest way possible, and caffeine running through his veins probably won't help at all with the intensity of things. Still, Shiro needs something to help focus and brace himself for the task ahead. He's no fool - this drift is going to be painful at best.

Shiro hasn't even so much as looked at the drift labs since the day of the fight, and even longer before that. After he and Sven became partners, there was no need. After that, no desire. The very thought of drifting in any capacity was too much. It’s still an incredibly heavy thought. Perhaps, he thinks, he should've seen his therapist one last time before today.

 _Too late now_ , he acknowledges to himself, settling in for his first cup of steaming comfort. Shiro sits back in his seat, opening his tablet to go through the morning headlines. He doesn't get many opportunities to be alone with himself anymore, the war effort taking up so much of his time, so the brief reprieve before an objectively difficult day is nice. Still…

 **_Shirogane. T_ ** _\- Are you busy?_

 **_Kogane. K_ ** _\- Just about as busy as you probably are._

 **_Shirogane. T_ ** _\- Would you like to join me for coffee before we begin today?_

There are things they should probably address before seeing them inside each other’s heads.

 

+++

 

Keith squints up at the tablet he holds over his head. It's beginning to become worrisome how Shiro just _knows_ the moment Keith pries open his eyes in the stifling darkness of his room. If he didn't know any better, he'd say the man is running surveillance on him.

As it is, it would seem they just both run on the same internal clock.

 **_Kogane. K_ ** _\- Yeah, okay. Be there in ten._

 **_Shirogane. T_ ** _\- Great! I just made a fresh pot._

Keith wonders about the wisdom of splitting a pot of coffee before the first time they ever try to drift together, but then again, he's still slightly questioning whether they should even drift in the first place.

Either way, he's committed to doing this. He has to at least _try_. He rolls his tired body out of bed and rifles through his bag for some suitable clothes. It's been a long time since he's been in a drift chamber, and in school they had these special spandex get-ups they would wear. He doesn’t know how they handle drifts out in the real world.

 **_Kogane. K_ ** _\- Hey, quick question. What do I wear today?_

 **_Shirogane. T_ ** _\- Training clothes are fine. You should be comfortable. The first drift is always the most challenging._

Right. First. Because Shiro is sure this will go well. Even though he's terrified as all hell, Keith rather hopes the same.

 **_Shirogane. T_ ** _\- They strip you down anyway._

Ah.

He throws on the clothes he wore when they met in the Kwoon, and stands still with his eyes closed just to give himself a second to regain steadiness. He gives his body one final pat down in an effort to distract himself from his nerves, and scoops his comm tablet up from the bed.

 **_Kogane. K_ ** _\- Okay, I'm on my way over. Be there soon._

 **_Shirogane. T_ ** _\- See you in a few._

Keith sighs and looks around his room one last time. If today goes well, this will be the last morning he spends here. Pilots are expected to room together (an effort to strengthen the bonds of the drift), so whenever a Ranger pair is established, they move on to larger shared quarters in a different wing.

This room is far from home, but it's a place to lay his head. It's not held together by rust and maintained with ire and stuffed to the gills with other filthy bodies crammed in too-small bunks, so it's something better than he's had the past few years. He may end up missing it. He's not totally sure.

He clicks off the light and heads for the Officer’s hall.

 

+++

 

The knock on his door comes sooner than Shiro expects, but he suspects that's due to the strange time dilation he's been feeling all morning. The minutes pass too quickly, but not quickly enough - a thick rubber band of seconds that expands and contracts, but never fully relaxes into one uniform shape. He's currently in a contraction, and he'd like to get out.

He swings the door open to reveal Keith, looking rather hesitant and drawn. He's paler than normal, sleep-tousled but still looking unrested. He looks how Shiro feels, and it's a small comfort, even if the thought is marginally cruel.

“Keith. Good morning!” he greets in his best attempt at cheerfulness. “Come in.”

It's not that he's _not_ feeling cheerful. He really is. It's just that, the closer they get to their report time, the more the unexplainable tangle of emotions in his gut begins to untangle. He can pluck at the individual threads and tease out the cords one by one: nervousness, excitement, dread, hope, regret, fear, and a fuzzy little string that he can't quite put a name to yet. He has an idea of what it may be, but it's way too soon for that.

“Thanks,” Keith murmurs, brushing against Shiro's side as he pushes into the room. Shiro closes the door with a quiet click and turns around, meeting eyes with Keith, standing awkwardly in the middle of the room.

He jolts back into himself, remembering why he asked him here in the first place.

“Coffee! I promised you coffee.”

Keith laughs, and his tension bleeds away in an instant. “Yes, you did.”

“Well, please,” Shiro gestures to the table, “have a seat. I'll go get you a cup.”

Keith sits as requested and silently looks up at Shiro through his bangs. By now, Shiro is coming to understand that Keith has many self preservation tactics, but they’re all so distracting. He hopes they can skirt around this in the drift today.

Shiro returns to the table, placing the cup down in front of Keith and taking a seat for himself.

“So,” he begins, cocking his head just slightly, “are you ready for today?”

“Honestly? I don't know.”

“Hmm, that's fair. I was terrified the first time I drifted with Sven.”

“It's not terror. Not really, anyway,” Keith replies, looking through those damn bangs again. Shiro wishes he had one of those hair clips Pidge uses sometimes, just to keep the offending hair from getting in his way. He fights back his hand’s impulse to reach out and sweep it aside.

“So what is it?” he asks instead.

“Nerves, mostly. I don't like not knowing what I'm gonna see in there. What _you're_ gonna see.”

“Ah, yeah. I was kind of hoping we could talk about that a little bit before we head up, actually. That's part of why I invited you over.”

“Oh, so it wasn't for my sparkling wit? How disappointing,” Keith deadpans. If Shiro was a more forward man, he'd launch himself across the table and kiss him right now.

Instead, “I think I can access that any time,” he says, throwing a wink out at the end.

Keith crosses his arms across his chest.

“I'll be the judge of that.”

 

+++

 

Shiro laughs from across the table and Keith lets his arms drop, lacing his fingers and setting his clasped hands down before him.

“But really,” Shiro says, “I think it's important we talk about what we can expect in there.”

He's not wrong.

“Alright, then. Walk me through it, _sir_.”

Shiro freezes, unblinking. Oh, that's interesting. He had thought the reaction to the word had been a one-off, but it would seem that isn’t the case. Keith tucks this information away for later, needing to return to the more important matter at hand. He waves a hand in front of Shiro's face, smirking at him when he pulls out of his daze.

“Good to have you back.”

“Uh, sorry about that.”

“I'm not.”

Keith's not a sadist. He's not. Really. There's just something about seeing Shiro squirm that he really, _really_ likes.

“Well anyway,” Shiro continues, “you’re more than aware of the theory of drifting, but the reality is...different.”

“Obviously,” Keith states. The reality of any given situation is always at odds with the theory. You can hypothesize until the world ends, but until you move your thoughts into practical applications, you never really know how things will turn out.

“Right, so first: emotions. We’re gonna feel it all. Not just the idea of it, but _all_ of it. Everything. The moment one of us feels something, the other one will, too.”

“Okay,” Keith says, unsure. He knows the basics about the drift. You feel it all, you see it all, you connect on a base level that nobody else but maybe a psychic could do, and since psychics aren’t real, well, there it is.

“I don’t think you’re getting me, Keith. We’ll feel every little thing in the most intense way possible. It’s overwhelming at first. It’s a lot.”

“Alright, so prepare for really intense emotions, got it.”

Keith says the words with as much assurance as possible, but Shiro looks unconvinced.

“Memories. You can access them all. I’m talking, from first memories right up until this conversation we’re having right now. We’re gonna be able to see them all and relive them all as if they’re our own. It’s kind of a scary feeling, and I think you should know that.”

Keith knew that sharing memories was part of the whole experience of drifting, but wow. Everything? There are some really personal things in his brain. Things he’s not totally sure he’d want others to see.

“I know what you’re thinking,” Shiro blurts out. “It’s embarrassing the first time, to be sure. But if we do our best not to fixate and chase the memories, then there shouldn’t be much for us to worry about.”

“Easy for you to say,” Keith grumbles.

Shiro barks a laugh and lays his hand on Keith’s shoulder. “No, really. I get it. There are things up here I’d rather you not see either, but we just kinda have to...push past that.”

“Okay, just don’t judge me, alright?”

Shiro schools his face into the most serious expression he can muster, but his eyes still sparkle with the glee of knowing what Keith is getting at.

“I won’t judge you. But I thought it would be smart if we talked a little about what we might see that way we aren’t surprised when we get in there.”

“Okay. Okay, I can do that. That makes sense.”

“So, first things first, let’s rip off the bandaid. Sexual history. We’re gonna see it, so let’s just get it out there.”

Keith chokes on the sip of coffee he just took. “What, like _now_?”

“Well, would you rather do it now, or do it when we get in there?”

“I, uh-”

“Look, it’s okay, I’ll go first.”

Keith can feel his skin burst into flame. Heat creeps around under the collar of his shirt. It’s not that he didn’t know this was coming, it’s just that he thought maybe they could skirt around it a little bit? Honestly, he didn’t really know what he thought, but boy howdy, was this ever a way to get to know a person.

“So, I’m not that well-versed?” Shiro continues. “You won’t see that much in there.”

“Great,” Keith deadpans. “I’m, uh, I’ve done things.”

“Things,” Shiro repeats.

“Things. Look, it’s not important, you’ll see it. Isn’t it enough to know we’ve both had sex? Like, cool, great, there’s that total lack of mystery. Can we move on?”

Shiro smirks across the table. “Yes, of course. I’ll see it all, anyway.”

Keith groans into his mug.

“The most important thing, though,” Shiro continues, turning suddenly serious, “RABITS.”

“RABITS.”

Keith knows about RABITS. They’re the reason he could never drift properly in the first place. Every time he tried, he saw his family, he heard their voices, he felt their pain, and he couldn’t focus. He saw himself standing on his home streets, his friends and family and neighbors rushing by in a panic, and he couldn’t pull himself away.

“They hurt. A lot. I think we both know what ours are. The important part is being able to pull each other out of it and keep moving forward. We only have a couple minutes to do it if one of us starts chasing, so we have to be quick, but I have no doubt we can do it.”

Keith squints across the table at Shiro. He looks so open and honest and eager that Keith finds it hard to voice his doubts. So he doesn’t.

“Yeah. Yeah, okay.”

 

+++

 

Shiro can feel the nervousness rolling off of Keith in waves as they step into the drivesuit room. The Marshall is standing inside, awaiting their arrival, and that does nothing to settle his obvious discomfort. A few steps in the door, Keith locks up at his side. Shiro stops with him, placing a hand on his shoulder.

“You gonna be okay, buddy?”

Keith looks up at him, his eyes soft and wavering around the edges.

“I’m, uh. Turns out I’m _really_ fucking nervous?”

Shiro chuckles low in his throat. “Yeah, I am, too. But I meant what I said. We can do this. I know we can.”

He claps his hand down on Keith’s shoulder again, and it’s like the tension encasing him shatters, falling away in jagged shards, leaving him sagging a bit under the weight of the gravity in the room.

“Gentlemen,” Iverson nods their way, “are we prepared for today?”

“Ready as we’ll ever be, Marshall,” Shiro answers. Keith sways a bit beside him, but manages to gather his voice, steady and smooth.

“Yes, sir.”

“Alright, then. Let’s get you suited up and I’ll see you out there.”

The Marshall doesn’t wait for an answer, he just turns on his heel and marches up to the control room. It’s fair, really. Shiro knows he’s still pretty unhappy with his desire to get back in the Lion, but the way Shiro sees it, he really doesn’t have a choice. He’s meant to pilot her for as long as possible. He’s meant to do everything he can to help end this war. Keith is meant to help him do it. They’re meant to be partners, and today they’re going to prove it.

A light touch lands on Shiro’s shoulder.

“Welcome back, Officer.”

Shiro looks down to his side into the gently smiling face of Shay, the resident Neural Bridge Operator. He can’t help but smile back. Shay’s always been a beacon of positivity around the base and in the control room. She was always one of his and Sven’s favorite parts of initiating a drift. Her hand slides down to his elbow and she tugs him down into a hug.

“I’m so glad you’re getting back in there,” she whispers.

“Yeah,” he answers, pulling back to give her another smile. “Me too.”

“And you!” she shouts, turning her attention over to Keith. He startles at the rise in volume, but holds his ground as she stomps forward to scoop him up in a hug. “I never thought we’d see anyone get this big boy out in the field again! I’m so happy you happened!”

Keith gives Shiro a confused look over her shoulder and he has to stifle his laughter in his fist.

“Thanks, but we don’t know how this’ll go yet, so.”

“Oh stop!” she cries, punching him in the arm. “You’ll do great! Trust me! I saw that spar out there. Y’all were really something else, lemme tell ya. I haven’t seen a fight like that in a _good_ while.”

Keith’s mouth flounders open and closed a couple times. He turns back to Shiro. “Is there _anyone_ on this base that didn’t see that fight?”

“Nope!” Shay answers him brightly. Keith groans in horror, clamping his eyelids shut, and Shay winks across the room at Shiro. He’s thankful, at least, that she could provide a distraction from the nerves. She’s always been good at that.

“Now!” she continues, clapping her hands together. “Let’s get you boys suited up. Go! Go!”

She shoves Keith over to the dressing room, where he’s closely followed by three technicians, carrying a few separately sized suits in their own tactical cases. Once they all pass through the doors, she turns her attention back to Shiro. Her expression softens immediately as she slowly approaches him, palms out, as though she’s approaching a scared dog. She stops just in front of him, placing her hands on his elbows.

“Are you sure you’re ready to come back?”

Shiro breathes in a deep breath, allowing it to fully circulate his lungs, imagining the oxygen reaching his bloodstream and diffusing through his muscles. He lets the breath out slowly and smiles, a fragile little thing, but pure all the same.

“Yeah. Yeah, I really think I am.”

She scans his face for a few seconds, and then finally allows a matching smile to spread across her features.

“Okay, then. In that case, I have a gift for you.”

Shiro makes a questioning noise as she disappears around the corner. She returns shortly, carrying a beat up, last-gen drivesuit case in one hand and his old helmet in the other. Shiro gasps in a sharp breath this time. He trails his eyes up from her arms to her face, and goddammit, if he didn’t want to cry before, he definitely does now. Her face is even softer, eyelids rimmed with unshed tears, but she only lets a single sniffle pass by before straightening up and laying the case on a nearby workbench.

“I saved it for you. It’s been resized to accommodate the new you, of course, but it didn’t feel right to not have you in it.”

She reaches down, unlocking the latches on the side of the case.

“Are you ready?” she asks one last time, looking up at him from the still unopened case. He sniffles and nods back.

“Yeah. I’m ready.”

“Okay.” She smiles and opens the lid.

 

+++

 

Keith steps out from the dressing room and his eyes immediately land on Shiro, standing tall and proud, graceful and sleek in his drivesuit. It’s an older model, obviously upgraded, but impactful and striking all the same. In fact, it looks a lot like-

“Is that...?” he asks, the unfinished question hopefully leading to the obvious.

Shiro raises his hand to rub at the back of his neck.

“It is. They fixed it up for me, but it is.”

“Are you okay in it?” Keith asks, genuinely full of concern. This can’t be easy for Shiro to go through. He’s relived so many painful memories in such a short time, it’s hard to imagine him not going through shock at some point sooner or later.

Shiro looks down at himself, holding his arms up to inspect them in their new-old wrappings. He smiles lightly and looks back up at Keith.

“Yes, actually. It feels good. I think it would feel weird if I _wasn’t_ in it, you know? Almost disrespectful.”

Keith can understand. What he went through to just get back to this point was a huge undertaking. It’s easily imaginable that the old suit would at least give him a link between the past and the present. A way to bridge the gap between what was and what could be.

“Well, you look great,” Keith says. Levity, he finds, is usually the best way to get Shiro to cheer up. It works wonderfully, because Shiro bursts into laughter and sweeps his eyes over Keith.

“So do you. How does it feel?”

“Honestly?” Keith asks, looking down at his own body. “Tight.”

Shiro laughs again, louder this time.

“That they are.”

He steps forward, placing a hand at Keith’s elbow. His eyebrows furrow, a slight crinkle pushing in between them.

“Are you sure you’re ready? Last chance to back out would be right about now.”

Keith’s been wavering on this for such a long time. But finally standing in it, finally having a partner he _chose_ , wearing a real drivesuit and gearing up to drift with someone he has a say in? He’s ready. He feels it deep in his bones, the resonance of a surety he hasn’t felt in a very long time. He looks up at Shiro, determination zipping through his veins.

“What kind of partner would I be if I backed out now?”

Shiro gives him a radiant smile.

“Then let’s get in there.”

 

+++

 

Shiro looks dead ahead when he and Keith put their suit helmets on and step next to each other for relay-gel activation. The Black Lion’s tech team steps forward, clicking their spinal clamps into place, and their suits burst to life, louder and more jarring than he remembers. All the joints and relays slide into place with reassuring clicks, and he watches as the golden goo of the relay gel fills his screen and drains downward through the rest of his suit. The gel wraps him in the slightest cooling sensation, and he smiles. He remembers this feeling. The techs check their status on the drivesuit monitors in the room and declare them ready to go.

Keith looks over at Shiro. They don’t say anything, but he knows the feeling Keith’s trying to convey with his eyes.

_We’re doing this. We can do this._

They reach out simultaneously and squeeze each other’s hands quickly before facing forward and watching the team open the door to their Conn-Pod.

Shiro allows Keith to enter the Pod bay before him, just so he can get the full view of the impact the sight makes on him. He’s not disappointed. Keith’s jaw drops open, his eyes widen, and he glances around with all the wonder and pureness of a child on Christmas morning. Shiro steps up behind him, placing a hand between his shoulder blades.

The lights of the Conn-Pod snap on around them, the Lion’s systems booting up with a mechanical whirr. The control panels sparkle and shine with new options and menus. Shiro looks around them, eyes welling up with tears _again_ as he takes her in. She feels so different, but familiar all the same.

“Welcome to the Black Lion, Keith,” he says, flexing his fingers on the other man’s spine.

“She’s gorgeous,” Keith breathes.

“Yeah, she is,” Shiro agrees.

Shiro looks around again, and even though her interior is clean and essentially new, he can’t help but see the ghosts of Sven and past-Shiro putting Black through her paces. If he closes his eyes, he’s certain he can hear them shouting to each other, to control, through the drift. He can see their feet working her legs, their arms in her relays, their thoughts working in tandem.

“Good afternoon, boys. Are we ready to give this baby a shot?” Shay’s voice plays out over the comms unit.

Keith looks over at Shiro. “Well, Takashi? Are we ready?”

Shiro shakes away the cobwebs from his mind and grins at the harness units.

“I think we’re ready.”

 

+++

 

Keith follows Shiro’s lead as they climb into the Black Lion’s harnesses, allowing him to take the lead. It only feels right to let him be the first one up. The Lion was his before, she’s his again, and it seems like the right kind of deference to let him take his rightful place in her before Keith even moves.

Shiro makes to climb up into the right hand harness - the Captain’s position - but stops short, shooting a questioning glance Keith’s way. He knows what he’s asking, as if it’s even a question.

“I know you’re not asking me permission to captain your own Jaeger,” he quips.

Shiro smiles, small puffs of shaky breath.

“I like to be polite.”

Keith smiles back at him, hoping the reassurance he’s trying to write into his features stands out.

“There’s a first time for everything, I guess.”

Shiro scoffs at him and takes his place, foot clamps closing down on his boots. He looks expectantly at Keith when his feet are fully strapped in.

“Well? Get up here!”

Keith comes back to himself and scrambles up into his own harness. His boots get buckled down, and he jumps a little at the harsh sound of the brackets clicking him into place. Shiro laughs across at him.

“You alright there, buddy?”

“Yeah, yeah, I’ll manage,” Keith grumbles.

The tech team rushes in around them, hooking them fully into the harnesses. The hasps on their spinal clamps slide into their final position with resounding _clack-clack-clack_ s, and suddenly, Keith can feel the Black Lion all around them.

“Well, initial connection is looking good, guys!” Shay calls over the comm.

“Boys, this is Marshall Iverson,” the Marshall breaks in. “I need to tell you this up front: we tried closing the breach yesterday, and the mission failed. This Jaeger is needed now more than ever. Do your best in there today.”

“No pressure, though, am I right?!” Shay chirps over the speakers, trying her best to break the tension the Marshall’s words create.

Keith looks across at Shiro. “Did you know they were going to try closing the breach?”

Shiro looks just as surprised as Keith feels. “I had no idea.”

“Interesting.”

“Yes it is, isn’t it?” Iverson drawls. “Let’s get to it, please.”

“Alright Rangers,” Shay confirms, “prepare for drop!”

“Copy!” Shiro replies.

“Copy!” Keith repeats.

“Initiating drop sequence!”

Keith’s stomach climbs directly into his throat as their Conn-Pod plummets downward, rushing toward the body of their Jaeger with blinding speed. He muffles the squeak of surprise that wants to climb out of his throat and settles for squeezing his eyes closed instead.

The Conn-Pod finally lands on the shoulders of the Lion, and Keith and Shiro remain quiet as they listen to the final sounds of her collar clicking and hissing into place beneath them.

“Pod-link confirmed,” Shay says after a minute. “I’m going to let you two settle for a moment before we kick you into drift.”

“Thanks, Shay,” Shiro answers. He turns his head in Keith’s direction.

“How are you feeling?”

“Kinda excited, kinda nervous, kinda wanna barf. You?”

“Roughly the same, actually.”

Keith laughs quietly, more at ease with the situation knowing that Shiro is right there with him.

“I know this is a sensitive one,” the Marshall’s voice says from overhead, “but we really need to get this show on the road, fellas.”

“Okay, boys. I’m going to engage your pilot-to-pilot sequence, but you’ll remain locked in place. The Lion will go active, but she’ll still be in the hangar. That means all your weapons and systems will be live in order to fully engage the drift. Do you copy?”

“We copy,” Keith answers, nodding to Shiro.

“Alrighty, then! Engaging pilot-to-pilot sequence!”

Another, more robotic, voice joins the noise.

_“Pilot-to-pilot connection protocol sequence engaged”_

“Ah,” Shiro says, “I forgot to tell you about our robot lady. I call her Shelley.”

Keith laughs at that. “Why Shelley?”

“I have no idea. It’s a nice name, though, don’t you think?”

“I guess so,” Keith answers with a smile.

The Marshall’s voice rings out overhead again. “Alright, fellas, it’s the moment of truth. Prepare for neural handshake.”

“Neural handshake beginning in fifteen seconds!” Shay calls.

“Okay,” Shiro exhales heavily.

“fourteen…”

“We can do this, Keith.”

“thirteen…”

“Yes we can, Takashi.”

“twelve…”

“I’m glad it’s you, Keith.”

“eleven…”

“Me too, Takashi.”

“ten…”

Okay.

“nine…”

They can definitely do this.

“eight…”

Keith for sure isn’t panicking at all.

“seven…”

Shiro’s definitely not breathing heavily beside him.

“six…”

They’re just fine.

“five…”

Nobody is going to panic.

“four…”

Keith is definitely not going to panic.

“three…”

Nothing bad is going to happen.

“two…”

“I’ll see you in there, Keith.”

“one.”

_“Neural handshake initiated”_

 

+++

 

Both pilots close their eyes as a sharp wave of blue rushes through their minds. Everything is coated in an oceanic aquamarine as the drift initiates, swirling bubbles and visions of neurons floating through their linking consciousness. Their connection starts off buried in the blue for a minute that feels like a lifetime.

“Okay, Rangers,” Shay’s voice floats through to them, “you need to reach out. I know this part is pretty, but you’re going to get nowhere fast if you keep looking around.”

They’re both comfortable tumbling around in the coziness of the effervescent blue. Flashes of memories zip by from both of them, but there’s nothing entirely distinguishable. Keith as a child, laughing and blowing dandelions, running around a grassy yard, tripping and falling on a playground. A young Shiro, reading books about stars in an elementary school library, playing soccer in the sun, holding his mother’s hand as they cross the street.

The flashes continue, only now, they’re both older. Keith is a scrappy teenager, fighting some punk in a skate park, drinking beer at a random house party, kissing a boy behind a restaurant dumpster under harsh streetlights. Shiro is a confident high-schooler, holding an acceptance letter to the school of his dreams, lacing fingers with a girl he’s taking to the movies, holding his mother in his arms as he leaves home for the first time.

The images keep flashing by, slipping past them in immeasurable time as they both look around each other’s thoughts and minds. A chuckle floats through the stream as a memory of Keith embarrassing himself in front of his first crush surfaces.

_Shut up, Shiro._

_Sorry._

They press onward, sifting through memories and feelings and moods as they come closer to unity.

“You’re getting close, boys. Keep pushing,” encourages Shay.

The memories come closer to the present. Shiro is standing in a flight simulator classroom, being praised for his performance again. He’s not listening, though, because over the shoulder of the instructor, he’s making eye contact with a boy in his class with nice eyes. He’s tall, tan, and pretty - all California smile and relaxed posture.

Keith bristles through the connection.

_You’re really not gonna like the next part, then._

The memory flashes forward - not far, but enough. Shiro is naked and pinned under the other cadet’s body, sweaty and writhing. The boy rakes a hand down his bare stomach, his muscles rippling in response.

“I’ve wanted to get my hands on you all year,” he says, all heat and lust.

“Well, here they are,” Shiro pants.

The other cadet leans down to whisper in his ear, “Here they are.”

His hands slide lower.

Keith jerks them away from the memory, launching their focus off in another direction. Shiro colors the connection with amusement.

_Let me see one of yours, then._

_I’d really rather not._

_It’s only fair._

The connection flits around until they land on another memory: Keith pinned against the door of a cramped bedroom in a dorm. Some guy he met at a party has his tongue in his mouth. They both smell like contraband liquor and cigarettes, but they’re both too drunk and horny to notice. The guy slides his hands up under Keith’s t-shirt, going straight for his chest, tweaking at his nipples. Memory Keith purrs into his mouth. Shiro growls through the connection.

_That’s a little hypocritical of you._

_Shut up, Keith._

_Does this mean you have a crush on me?_

_Shut UP, Keith._

Back in the memory, Keith is shoving the guy down on the bed and reaching for his fly. He yanks his pants down and climbs across his body. The guy tears his shirt off over his head, looping it around his neck and dragging him down into a needy kiss. They both moan out, filling the room with their noise. Keith stands long enough to wiggle out of his own pants and reaches into his bedside table. He tosses a condom down on the bed next to the other guy’s head.

“Suit up, I’m gonna ride you.”

The guy grabs for the condom. Keith yanks his boxers down, coats his fingers in lube and-

_OKAY, THAT’S ENOUGH._

Keith laughs through the blur as they tug away from the memory.

_Shiro, I had no idea you were the jealous type._

_Fuck off, Keith._

“We’re getting closer, boys!” Shay calls. “Whatever you’re doing in there, keep it up!”

_Let’s don’t._

_Agreed._

They keep wandering through their shared minds, peeking in and pulling away from memories. They see birthdays, holidays, family reunions, graduation days and celebrations and finally, they pull up on one of Shiro’s bigger memories.

He’s a fresh recruit to the PPDC. His hair is still all black, both arms are still his own, he’s in a constant state of relaxation and cheerfulness. It’s his first day on the compound, and he’s just been assigned his room. His suitcase sits open at the end of his bed, forgotten temporarily while he flips through his brand new comm tablet. He smiles in excitement at the message that just pushed through: _Day one of compatibility sparring scheduled in Kwoon tomorrow at 0800 hours. All recruits required to attend._

The memory skips forward to the next morning. Shiro’s on the mat, having just put down an opponent. He helps the other recruit up and smiles at her, shaking hands before she retreats.

“Alright, then, we’ll try you with Mister Holgersson.”

Another recruit that looks startlingly similar to Shiro steps forward with his hand extended.

“Please, call me Sven.”

_Ah._

_This is the day we met._

A pang of sadness and regret surges forward through their connection. It’s chased away by the warm tendrils of comfort and reassurance.

They watch in silence as Shiro and Sven spar, matching each other perfectly, hit for hit, word for word, smile for smile. By the end of it, they’re victorious, declared drift compatible. They leave the Kwoon as new partners, giddy and young and ready to take on the drift and then the world.

The view sweeps forward through time again, to Shiro and Sven’s first drift. As far as first drifts go, it’s perfect. They meet in the bubbling blue, they speak for a little while, they parse through awkward memories, but then they shoot through to the other side, holding the drift and smiling at each other, excitement and pride zinging all throughout.

They skip over memories of shared missions, dual victories. They pass over training and relationship building. They jump through downtime and shared meals. They keep fast forwarding until finally, they hit a new stopping point.

Shiro and Sven are already in the Black Lion, wading out to sea amid churning waters stirred up by a raging thunderstorm. Rain is driving down across their windshield and wind is howling around their machine in unforgiving surges of force. Horror and despair pulse through the connection.

_This is the night._

A low pang of realization and trepidation flits out.

The Jaeger pushes forward into the sea, heavy feet splashing and long arms swinging. Their SONAR readout shows the blip of a Kaiju just about a click ahead. The drift between Shiro and Sven hums with anticipation and an itch to fight. _Here we go, buddy,_ Shiro pushes into their drift, and Sven responds in kind.

The Kaiju pushes above the water, and with no hesitation, the pair rush forward, driving their Jaeger’s shoulder straight into its ugly chest. The Kaiju stumbles back, but before they can hit it with their Plasmacaster, it reaches out, grabbing at the shoulder of their robot. Sven gets the caster online, and Shiro does his best to shake it off, but its grip is strong, its nails embedded just right in the seam of their Jaeger’s arm. Sven does what he can to aim their weapon, and fires a few rounds, but they all miss, the Kaiju too close and too full of fight.

Shiro watches in horror as the Kaiju reaches its other arm up, rearing back and punching their Conn-Pod head on. The windshield cracks, thin spiderwebs of fissures spreading out before them where bony knuckles meet smooth glass. Sven’s nerves begin to fray, pushing an edge of panic through their drift.

“I know, buddy, just hold on! We can handle this!” Shiro shouts out loud into the cockpit.

He brings the Jaeger’s other arm back again, ramming it into the Kaiju’s stomach, but it’s too little too late. The beast draws back again, sending furious claws forward into the already weakened face of their machine. In the background, the Marshall is yelling for them to get back to base, to pull out. They don’t really know how long he’s been yelling, but for some reason, he suddenly snaps back into focus. The Kaiju hits them again. The glass shatters. Their controls go out.

Terror. World-ending, gut-wrenching terror floods their drift. This is it, they both feel it. This is where they die. Their drift wavers. They’re both afraid and unprepared and so, so young. They’re not ready to go. But their controls are gone. They’re sitting ducks. They have no choice.

Sven pushes his respect and loyalty and unending care through the drift. Shiro answers with a brother’s love and dedication and the pride of a man who’s seen his partner grow exponentially in the time they’ve known each other.

The Kaiju’s claws come down again. It takes Black’s arm. Shiro feels the loss in his bones. It’s as though his own arm was taken.

The Kaiju’s hand returns once more. Excruciating pain, terror, and _nonoNO!_ burst through their drift. Shiro feels his whole side shredded away, but it’s not his side. He looks to his left and it’s Sven. Sven with a Kaiju’s claws sunk deep in his torso. Sven screaming his name and clawing at his harness for purchase against a force neither of them have a shot at defeating. Sven being dragged away and out and down and gone and-

_Shiro! Takashi! It’s not real! It’s just a memory!_

And the power is back on, and Shiro’s head is killing him. He’s firing plasma shots into an already dead Kaiju’s corpse. He’s searching and searching but he can’t find Sven. He’s gone, he can’t find him. He just has to find him, and everything will be okay. The pain is splitting his skull in two and he’s grieving the loss, and he’s terrified of the ocean, and he’s trudging back home, and he’s alone, he’s alone, he’s alone, he’s-

_SHIRO, YOU ARE NOT ALONE. THIS IS NOT REAL. SHIRO COME BACK._

He wakes up on the beach, torn up and bleeding and terrified, but it’s different than he remembers. Keith is here. Keith is crouched in front of him. Keith’s hand is on his face and his voice is murmuring low and his eyes are full of concern.

_Shiro this is just a memory. Come back._

_Keith, I-_

Pain and rage and remorse and sadness flood around him. Kindness and empathy and partnership chase them away.

_Shiro, I’m right here. It’s okay. Come back._

He looks back at Keith in his memory but not in his memory. He places his hand on top of Keith’s hand on his face. He breathes deep. He comes back.

“That was a close one, boys!” Shay shouts through the comm. “We almost had to pull you out, there!”

“Fellas, if you can’t do this-” Iverson warns.

“There’s still no drift, you two! Get back in there and try again!”

So again they dive. They float past Shiro’s pain. They glide over the memory of him in a tattoo parlor, scrawling ink across his thigh, memorializing the day he lost it all. They gloss over therapist’s visits. They regress a little bit, back to a time before all this happened. Back when Shiro was still young and carefree and dreaming of the stars and what they held for him.

He’s on a beach somewhere, his family laughing and playing around him. There’s a surfboard in his hand and a smile on his face and sun on his skin. He takes off running for the water, ocean waves calling his name. He throws his surfboard out in front of himself, laughing and glorious in the salt spray. He hits his first wave, barreling out through the other side. He’s unprepared, though, and another wave hits him in the side, throwing him from the board. He plunges under the water’s surface and the riptide catches him. It takes his body, sending him under the water’s surface, rolling him around like so much a ragdoll. He knew this could happen. He tries to stay calm. But his lungs are emptying of their oxygen and he’s _tumblingtumblingtumbling_ through the current.

But he’s not tumbling. It’s not him anymore. It’s someone else. His body morphs, changes, stretches and pulls and splits until it’s not him anymore. It’s three hims. Not three hims, three entirely different people. A woman, a man, a child. These are people Keith knows now. They’re Keith’s people. Keith’s _family_.

They’re screaming and crying and drowning. A Kaiju is crashing through their hometown, destroying streets, flattening buildings, infecting the locals with slick, oily blue. It’s ripping and tearing and smashing. Keith’s family is running and running and running and falling and bleeding. The streets turn into water. The whole town is submerged. The Kaiju rampages on, but now the family, Keith’s family, Keith’s little unit of safety, Keith’s _home_ is _drowningdrowningdrowning_. Their ragdoll bodies are thrown among the waves, the Earth’s forces ceaseless and uncaring, and through their connection, Keith is _screaming_.

Keith is pushing and pushing and trying to reach them. Through the connection, over top of the memory floats the voice over a phone line, “Mister Kogane, I’m so sorry. There were no survivors.”

Keith is screaming again, only now he’s underwater with them, he’s panicking and fighting, yelling at the Kaiju. He’s chasing after it, arms out as if he can take it down with just the force of his tiny fists and all his rage and-

_KEITH. KEITH, PLEASE. YOU DID IT FOR ME, NOW DO IT FOR YOU. COME BACK._

But he isn’t listening. He’s afraid and remorseful and horrified and guilty. He’s full of pain and rage and revenge and he’s still running through the water somehow. He’s still got a fist raised high and-

_KEITH. THIS ISN’T REAL. KEITH YOU HAVE TO PULL OUT. KEITH!_

“What’s going on in there?!” the Marshall demands over the comms.

“They’re dropping out of sync! Keith is chasing the RABIT!”

“Shirogane, you have ten seconds to snap him out of it or I pull the plug!”

_KEITH, PLEASE. I NEED YOU. WE NEED YOU. THIS ISN’T REAL, KEITH!_

Shiro tries to blend into the memory. Keith hears his voice. Keith turns around and sees him, but he doesn’t see him. He sees Shiro in danger, surrounded by water. Shiro is in the water with his family and he’s going to die. He’s going to be torn asunder and left for dead and he’ll never be found and Keith cannot allow it. He cannot lose them.

He turns back to the Jaeger, rushing and screaming and crying. Determined. He’s determined. He jumps high, higher than he’s ever jumped. Higher than is possible. He brings his fist back and flies forward, driving it out in what should be a crushing blow. His fist connects with the Kaiju’s face, exploding in light and heat and fire and suddenly-

 

+++

 

Keith wakes up on the floor of their Conn-Pod, shaking and screaming and sobbing. He’s in Shiro’s arms and Shiro’s trying his best, he can tell. He pulls his helmet off and throws it across the chamber. He’s whispering soothing words and murmuring noises of comfort, but it’s not helping. Keith is still so full of rage and pain and remorse. His head is killing him. It’s the most intense headache he’s ever felt in his life. It feels like his head will explode with the pressure.

The Marshall is screaming from overhead.

Shiro looks mournful.

Keith looks over his head, and through the wavering grey-black shadow pushing in around the edges of his consciousness, threatening to take over his mind, he sees it. The hole blasted clean into the side of the hangar. It’s huge and jagged. Molten metal drips down around the edges and pools on the Shatterdome floor beneath it. It’s the kind of damage that only a Jaeger can cause. It’s the kind of damage that he suspects-

“Did I?” he asks weakly.

Shiro doesn’t say a word as he looks down in Keith’s eyes and places a hand on his cheek, rubbing a rough thumb over the swell of the bone there. His face is swirling with emotions, but it also holds the answer. Even so, he draws himself together enough to verbalize.

“I couldn’t pull you out, Keith. You chased the RABIT and engaged the Plasmacaster.”

“Oh,” he answers weakly.

The Kaiju alarm blares overhead. Keith goes unconscious.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> how are we all doing?  
> are we feeling okay?  
> our boys are going through it, that's for sure.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> a pattern, a procedure, a partner

_“Harvesting the organs of a Kaiju is a highly profitable business in black marketeering. One of the first Kaiju harvested for their organs by harvesters was the Category II Kaiju, Onibaba, after it was killed in Tokyo by Coyote Tango...Harvesting Kaiju organs or other body parts from the creatures is considered illegal, prompting harvesters to act quickly when excavating the bodies within an exclusion zone.”_

_-[TIME Magazine article regarding the black market trade of Kaiju body parts](http://pacificrim.wikia.com/wiki/Kaiju_organ_Harvesters) _

 

+++

 

The Kaiju alarm sounds out overhead, and Lance hastily shoves one last tater tot in his mouth before he and the rest of the Rangers bound across the base to the Shatterdome.

They rush inside to complete and utter chaos.

There’s a hole blasted clean through the side of the garage’s wall, white-hot metal hissing and dripping to the floor. Clean-up crew are frantically running around below the rupture, trying to stem the damage. The Marshall is on the floor, yelling orders and directing workflow. He looks drawn and exasperated, the kind of tired that comes from shouldering too great a burden for the resources provided.

The Black Lion is in her stall, still winding down after the test drift they were banned from watching. Something about pressure and heightened emotions and sensitivity or some bullshit. Okay, it’s not bullshit, but _goddamn_ , did Lance want to watch that first drift happen. Judging from the damage to the hangar, though...maybe it’s best that they all went to lunch instead.

The Marshall wheels around to face them as they all stand slack-jawed and confused in the middle of the room.

“What are you all doing?! GET TO YOUR JAEGERS!”

Right. Yes. The alarm. It’s going off. Okay.

They all come back to themselves and fly across the garage to the elevator up to the drivesuit deck. When they arrive, they all launch out and head straight for their respective prep rooms to get suited up. They’ve already wasted precious minutes just getting themselves upstairs through the surprise destruction of the hangar.

Lance and Hunk suit up and fling themselves into their Conn-Pod so their team can strap them in. Once they drop to their Jaeger’s shoulders, the comms crackle to life.

“Well, hello again, boys!” Shay calls out to them.

“Shay!” Lance calls back, ignoring all pretense. “What the _hell_ happened to the dome?!”

“Uhhh, I’m not sure if-”

“That’s not your concern, Ranger,” the Marshall’s marble-cold tone breaks in. “What _is_ your concern is assisting The Castle with handling that monster out in the city, do you understand?”

Lance startles and looks over at Hunk, who mirrors his expression. “The city, sir?”

“Yes, the city. It broke through the wall and it’s out there tearing ass all over Chinatown. You boys think you can focus on _that_?!”

Lance sets aside his questions for the moment with a quiet sigh. “Yes, sir.”

“Fantastic. Prepare for neural handshake.”

“Wow, he’s really not fuckin’ around today, huh?” Hunk breathes out in surprise.

“Yeah, I guess not,” Lance agrees.

“Neural handshake starting in fifteen seconds!” Shay calls out to them.

“How you doin’ over there, Castle?” Hunk calls out.

“Just fine, boys!” Allura’s bell-tone voice responds. “See you in the streets!”

“Yes, ma’am!” Hunk replies, just as Shay hits the final five seconds of the countdown.

“And I’ll see _you_ in my head,” Hunk smirks, sending Lance’s organs all gooey and warm.

“Yeah, yeah,” he answers, smiling back.

“...three...two...one.”

_“Neural handshake initiated.”_

The familiar bubbly blue fills his senses and Lance reaches out, gripping onto Hunk’s mind as they mentally fall into step with each other.

_Well, hello, handsome._

_Babe, that’s my line._

_“Two pilots engaged in neural bridge.”_

“Neural handshakes strong and holding!” Shay cuts in overhead. “Welcome back to drift town, Danger Boys! Castle, you’re looking just as lovely as ever!”

Lance takes his control brace, snapping his side of the Jaeger into stance.

“Left hemisphere, calibrated!” he calls.

Hunk mimics the preparation to his right. “Right hemisphere, calibrated!”

They acknowledge the calibration and await their usual orders on bated breath. These liminal moments always feel more momentous than they most likely are, but the excitement and barely restrained giddiness singing between them spins and flares and goes on for miles and Lance can never help but feel like a part of something bigger than himself in that place.

“Rangers, your orders are to clear the threat and eliminate the danger, copy?”

“We copy!”

“Copy!”

“Then go save the world.”

So they do. The Castle takes point as usual, with the Paladin Danger bringing up support, and they head out into the city to greet yet another Mutavore.

“Look, I’m not the complaining type usually,” Hunk calls into the comms, “but what in the everloving _fuck_ are we getting all these Mutavores for?”

“I quite agree, Hunk,” Coran responds. “It’s definitely an oddity I think we should inquire with Katie about when we return to base!”

With that, The Castle tears through the Kaiju’s arm with their Chain Sword, cleaving ragged chunks of flesh out into the streets. Blue sprays dramatically over the surface of buildings and Lance groans, thinking about the cleanup ahead.

 _I know you hate cleanup babe, but c’mon now._ _It’s not that bad._

Lance huffs through the drift and engages their Plasmacaster, blowing a hole through the Kaiju’s abdomen. It stumbles around wildly, scrambling to remain upright and fighting, but once The Castle cracks open its chest, the monster doesn’t stand a chance against her missiles. It screeches and screams an ungodly noise as it sinks to the ground with a final, earth-rumbling roar.

“Great shot, Castle!” Hunk yells, raising his fist in triumph. Their Jaeger mimics the motion and Coran laughs through the comms.

“You weakened it up nicely for us! Let’s get this blue cleaned up and go home!”

Just as Lance predicted, cleanup is a total drag. It’s not that they have to do anything crazy, but it’s always such a boring and pedantic task when he’d much rather be fighting the monsters or eating lunch or sparring his husband or otherwise occupying his husband.

_That’s enough of that, we’re almost done._

_Yes, dad._

_Oh my god, yes, still so horny for it!_

Lance can’t help it, he laughs out loud as they withdraw their cleaning equipment just as corpse removal crews roll onto the scene and head back to the base.

Upon arrival, they go through their regular decontamination and showering and join the pilots of The Castle down in the mess. Lance takes a few extra minutes in line to decide which kind of juice he wants before settling on just grabbing both and drinking half of each. By the time he gets to their table, Hunk, Allura, and Coran are already deep in conversation.

“I’m just saying that it’s really weird that we’ve been seeing the _exact_ same kind of Kaiju for the past handful of missions. That never happens!” Hunk exclaims. Lance presses a bottle of water in one of his waving hands. “Thanks, babe. Either way, I think it’s a concern.”

“I don’t disagree, Hunk, I just don’t know how _big_ of a concern it truly is. What if it’s nothing? What if it means they’re losing interest?”

“We tried to destroy their only channel between them and us, I hardly think they’d be losing interest in us now,” interjects Coran.

“Be that as it may, I just don’t think it’s as alarming as it is odd,” Allura says, shrugging a shoulder.

“Okay,” Lance pipes up, slapping a hand down on the table, “bigger, more _important_ topic: what the fuck happened in the Lion’s test drift today?! You all saw that shit in the garage. You know what that means.”

Allura sighs, reaching up to rub at her temples. “Yes, it’s...upsetting.”

Coran pats her on the shoulder. “There, there, princess. I’m sure it’s nothing too serious.”

The structure of his sentence shows what a lie that is. Coran only ever calls Allura by her childhood nickname when things are looking totally, monstrously bleak. He only uses it to ground her and help her focus.

“Coran, buddy, not to be that guy, but that’s horse shit and you know it,” Hunk says, poking his fork out in his direction.

Coran’s mustache twitches and he closes his eyes. It’s obvious he wants to say something, but changes his mind and remains silent.

The table remains quiet for a few minutes, the atmosphere getting more awkward as time slips by while they all ponder their own thoughts. Lance is an adult. Lance can handle himself in adult situations. _This_ situation, however, is something that he finds he can’t just sit around considering like an academic in an armchair.

“Sooooo,” he begins, “which one of them do you think it was?”

Nobody answers, because even if they all have their suspicions, nobody wants to be right.

 

+++

 

Keith is still laid up in the infirmary when the other teams get back from their latest Kaiju battle. Shiro knows this because he’s occupying himself with flipping through updated stats and charts on his tablet while he waits for Keith to come back around to the world of the living. The alert comes through directly from central control: _Kaiju takedown successful, Category IV Mutavore_.

 _Another Mutavore?_ Even for something so unpredictable as the breach, it’s odd that it should be spitting out so many of the same Kaiju back-to-back the way it has been as of late. He really should go talk to Pidge about it. He really should go talk to _anyone_. He hasn’t seen hide nor hair of a single person since he and Keith managed to fuck up so spectacularly in their test drift. It’s fair, he thinks. They most likely want to give them time and space to work it out, to pinpoint exactly what went wrong.

He already knows, though. Keith doesn’t trust him. That’s the only way he would have resisted pulling out of the chase. It has to be. Shiro’s not entirely sure, he’s never been through a RABIT chase before, but it stands to reason that you’d need total trust come out of it intact. He knows for sure that Keith was able to get him out of his. So why couldn’t he return the favor? It makes him angry to think about, so he actively stops and returns his attention to the tablet in his hand.

It works for about two minutes until he finds himself meandering again. Okay, so maybe trust isn’t the issue. If it were, Keith would never have agreed to try drifting in the first place. Keith didn’t strike Shiro as weak-minded, and he more than proved that in the drift. Right before he lost it and tore the ass out of the Shatterdome, though, all Shiro could feel was his anger and protective instinct flaring in his skull. His determination and power, out of control and flung out as a shield over his most precious people.

Maybe, just maybe, it was misplaced fear. Fear of losing, fear of what’s already been lost. Keith felt afraid like Shiro had never thought he could be. He always seemed so stubborn and proud that it was easy to forget how multifaceted humans are when faced with him. Shiro knew there was more to him, of course there was, but the feeling was crippling. Perhaps that _was_ all there was to it. A fear that not even Shiro could reach.

He looks down at the sleeping man before him, fighting the urge to reach out and touch him, to try and ground himself to the fact that he’s still here and alive and breathing. The thought is enough for now. It has to be enough. He needs him to wake up first. They have some talking to do. They have to try again.

He returns his attention to his tablet, waking it up and flipping through to play a game of solitaire to distract himself for good this time. He clears a stack of cards and moves to clear the next when the infirmary door slams open against the wall and Marshall Iverson stomps angrily up to the bed. Shiro stands up, opening his mouth to say something, _anything_ , to knock him off-track of his anger, but he fails, the Marshall delivering a harsh jab of fingers to his chest instead.

“I _told_ you it was much too soon. I told you it was a bad idea!”

“And yet, you let us try.”

“You had me fooled, Takashi! You promised me you were ready!”

“And we were. We almost made it, Marshall.”

“Almost is not accomplishment!”

“I’m sorry, sir. Those were big memories to deal with. We knew it was a risk.”

“Your risk just cost us funding we were already running low on, Officer!”

Shiro recoils at the word. The Marshall never refers to him by rank. It’s an almost physical pain to know how disappointed he is.

“Sir, we’ve already been through the worst of it. Next time, we’ll be ready to face it properly.”

“Next time?! You really think I’m giving you a next time?!”

“I know you, sir. And I know our situation. You can’t afford _not_ to give us a next time.”

The Marshall draws up short. He may be good at hiding how poorly supported the Jaeger program has been from everyone else, but Shiro is essentially his right-hand man. Shiro’s seen every detail, heard every forced video call, watched as the man who is nearly a father to him has become more haggard and aged than anyone has any right to in such a short amount of time.

“Marshall. Sir. We can do this. I know we can.”

Iverson closes his eyes, steeling himself against Shiro and, seemingly, the world at large. After a beat, he returns his solemn attention to Shiro’s face.

“You are grounded from attempting another drift pending a psych eval for the both of you.” He jabs a finger at the bed. “When he wakes up, get him to his room for bed rest. I’ll schedule your interviews and send you the information.”

Shiro should have seen this decision coming, but he still deflates under the weight of the words.

“Yes, sir,” he says, looking down over Keith’s small and fragile body, voice full of trepidation and regret.

“Son,” Iverson says, stepping forward to glance at Keith over Shiro’s shoulder. “I want this to work for you. But I just don’t know that it can.”

Shiro closes his eyes. The Marshall’s hand disappears, and Shiro keeps his eyes closed until he hears the light swish of the infirmary door closing once again. When he reopens his eyes, Keith’s deep violet is staring right into them, unwavering, unblinking, and completely, utterly closed-off.

Shiro sinks back down into the bedside chair. “How much did you hear?”

“Enough,” Keith mumbles.

“Well, what do you think?”

Keith closes his eyes and drops his head further into his pillows, sighing. “I think I’m tired.”

“Aren’t we all?” Shiro weakly jokes, but it’s the wrong thing to say. Keith flinches, hunching down into himself and becoming impossibly smaller than he already is. Shiro sees it on him again, a reminder of that first day they met. A man forced to deal with goals too large, future responsibilities too broad, expectations too high. A man full of trauma and hurt and worry, filled to the brim with fire and passion and unending fight. Pretty and lived-in and tired. _Aren’t they all._

The doctor wanders in to check on Keith. Shiro watches silently as she runs through his vitals and declares him ready for discharge. Keith draws himself up on the edge of the bed, slumped but determined. Shiro reaches out to help him stand, but he’s brushed off in favor of the bedside table.

Keith won’t look at him. Instead, he trains his focus on the floor.

“Keith, look at me.”

He won’t. She shakes his head no, for once looking as young as he truly is.

“Keith, please,” Shiro begs.

“I’d like to go to my room and get more sleep, I think.” Keith’s voice is gravelly and torn. He’s gone from the world now, locked up in whatever private hell he keeps inside, and yeah. Yeah, Shiro thinks, that’s pretty fair. Still, the caustic prickling of doubt sits at the back of his mind, needling that he’s _still_ not enough, that he’s _still_ untrustworthy.

Despite his arguments, Shiro insists on escorting Keith back to his quarters. When they reach the door, Keith slips inside with a pained and mumbled _thanks_ , and the door slides closed in Shiro’s face.

Overhead, the Kaiju alarm goes off again. Shiro wants to cry.

Instead, he heads to his own room to change into sparring clothes.

While the Rangers of The Castle and Paladin Danger head out to battle another demon, Shiro heads up to the gym to try and tackle some of his own.

 

+++

 

There’s simply nothing else for it. Katie has to do this, and she has to do it quick. Matt messaged her earlier to say everything was ready, and with the rest of the base busy with yet another unexpected Kaiju event, now is the time she needs.

Shiro and Keith’s failed drift only added more fuel to her fire. She needs to do this for them. She needs to do it for everyone. They all deserve some damn _peace_ , and by god, she’s going to be the one to deliver it.

She rushes into the lab, Matt already waiting inside for her. He smiles brightly as she runs in and holds up the Pons device in his hands. It’s exactly as they’d discussed, but she still can’t help but feel awed and a little surprised by actually seeing it in person. They scalped a few pieces from the hospital wing to build a makeshift neural rig, and it is  _very_ makeshift indeed. She thinks back to several sci-fi movies she’d watched as a kid, where people would be hooked into complicated mind-tracking devices for observation of their brain waves, and suddenly feels like the star in her own type of action-adventure flick.

That’s dangerous thinking, though. She’s a scientist and that’s why she’s doing this. For science.

“Is that it?”she asks, drawing up to look at the rig in Matt’s hands.

Matt’s smile widens. “Exactly as discussed, m’lady.”

“Don’t ever say that to me again.”

He laughs, throwing his head back and slapping his knee.

“Whatever, Katie. I’m one fedora away from being a bonafide charmer.”

Katie snorts through her nose at him. “Well, Gentleman McGee, let’s focus. I dunno how much time we’ll have. The teams have been getting really good at whipping those cat-four asses.”

“Ah, you’re right, there,” Matt agrees, sliding off of the table he was perched on. “Alright, then, let’s go over the procedure.”

“Yes, sir!” Katie chirps, snapping herself into a salute. Matt scoffs, pushing her away with a hand sprawled across her face.

“Okay, so I built the rig based off of the original Pons harnesses from back in the day, but I programmed it in a wider spread so that hopefully the neural load doesn’t absolutely destroy you. But, Katie,” he says, placing a hand on her shoulder, “I’m still a little worried that it’ll be too much. I can’t have you die for this.”

She squints her eyes up at him. She loves her brother. She loves him so much. He’s calm and funny, he looks out for her when he can. He’s whip smart and never loses patience when she goes off the deep end trying to figure things out. He balances and refocuses her. He listens when she cries and frets and complains, and then encourages her to _just try again_.

“Matty, bro, broham, broseph,” she says lightly, punching him in the arm. “I trust you. I trust that big ole’ brain of yours. You made this, so it’s fine. Besides, they need me to do this. If I don’t, we’ll never see the end.”

Matt gives her a watery smile, tugging her into a hug.

“I always forget how grown up you are until you do something like this. I’m proud of you, kiddo. I love you.”

“Yeah, yeah. I love you, too, you fuckin’ nerd. Now, let’s get this show on the road!”

Matt straightens up, face tightening into a picture of determination. “Right. Let me walk you through it, and then we’ll do the damn thing.”

He gestures to a rolling stool just off to their side, and Katie takes the hint, plopping down on it. Matt pulls a rolling table over, the monitor system for the neural rig placed on top. He’s already run nodes over to the tank where the chunk of Kaiju brain is floating. It’s still pulsing and bobbing in its liquid, but now he’s got five neural probes jammed into the meat of it, rubber cords running back to the monitor.

“The hookup is pretty basic. I have it programmed to spread the connection out through more nodes than usual in an effort to ease the load and make the drift lighter on you. I still don’t really know how this is gonna go, though. We don’t know how powerful this brain is, we don’t know if Kaiju have language for you to even communicate, and I don’t really know what you’re going to see in there, so just...be careful, okay? I don’t need my idiot sister frying her brain over some idiot alien.”

Katie rolls her eyes and her stool.

“Don’t be a dummy. Got it.”

“When I hook you up, the drift won’t initiate until I run you through the regular sequence, just like Shay does up top. At that point, all I can do is monitor what your brain waves do. Anything else is up to you.”

“Yes, yes, I know that.”

“Are you ready, then?”

She looks across the room at the brain floating in its tank and gives it a sharp smile.

“Hell yeah, I am.”

“Alright.”

Matt comes back over to her and fits the neural rig on her head, sticking the nodes down where they need to be and fastening a strap around under her chin. He knocks on her head once he finishes. “Comfy?”

“As comfy as a bike helmet made of plastic disks can be, I’d wager.”

“Fair enough. Okay, here we go. Initiating drift sequence in five…”

His hand hovers over the switch and Katie gulps in a deep breath to keep herself calm.

“four…”

They make eye contact, and for a second, Katie thinks they could’ve been the ones to pilot the Lion for Shiro.

“three…”

Okay, so just gotta get in, get some info, and get out.

“two…”

Matt’s actually looking nervous now, and Katie does her best to shove it aside to focus on the task at hand.

“one. Good luck, sis.”

He flips the switch.

Katie full-body jerks as her mind pulls her, belly-button first through her own memories. Fishing on a lake with her family, getting her PHD, defending her theories at the beginning of the Kaiju clock’s development, all small blips of a life still short-lived, dragging her along her own history. She sees her own neurons firing, but then they blend into graphs and charts of biology very much not her own. She realizes, now, that it’s the Kaiju’s synapses crackling with energy, and not her own, that she’s watching in her mind’s eye.

She tumbles around and around, until she stumbles forward into the blue of the breach. Before her are arms and legs, heads and spines. Flesh connecting and reforming. Torsos becoming bodies becoming _beings_ , all directed by greater, more sentient Generals, building an army of Kaiju. They snap and snarl and leer, watching hundreds of new monsters birthed at their directives. They’re bred with a purpose: _invasion_. She speeds forward through the factory of aliens, feeling anger and hatred and the desire to conquer, until she’s thrown downdowndown through the neck of the breach, bouncing along the walls, crashing into light at the very end, until the light morphs into a cervix morphs into an eye, and it’s _her eye_ , and she’s still tumbling, but the eye opens, and it’s her eyes fluttering open, and suddenly, she’s awake and forced from the drift.

She’s on the floor, nose bleeding, convulsing in her brother’s arms, but in her time forced through the breach, she’s seen it all, she’s heard the parts of their plans that the Kaiju knew, she knows what they’re doing.

“Katie!” Matt is screaming, shaking her, slapping her face. “Katie! Please! Oh my god, Katie, c’mon!”

Matt tears the Pons device from her head. Tears slip down his face and land on her cheeks. She’s okay, shaky, but okay, but she can’t quite scrape her voice together to let him know. He tugs her closer in his arms, rocking her body back and forth.

“Oh god, Katie, what have we done?”

“That’s exactly what I’d like to know,” an angry baritone sounds from the doorway. They both look up just as the Marshall strides into view, stopping in front of them and glaring down at the Holt siblings crumpled on the floor.

“Imagine my surprise,” he drawls, “when I finish directing yet _another_ Kaiju attack that our clock missed, and someone from the power station sends a message to inform me of a rather large power surge coming from the lab. It’s more of a power draw than the two of you have managed yet on this base, and nobody can quite figure out what it is.”

Katie clears her throat to speak, but the Marshall barrels on, “So, I think to myself, Iverson, you know better than to suppose that they would do the very thing you directed them _not_ to do. I think, well, I’d just better carry myself on down there and see what new invention these two must be working on to help win this war. Instead, I stroll down to the lab to find my two _most important scientists_ , directly subjugating an order and BLEEDING ON THE FLOOR.”

“To be fair, sir,” Katie croaks out, “I’m the only one bleeding currently.”

“DON’T TEST ME, HOLT.”

Matt tugs her upright and seats her in an office chair, crouching beside her and wiping the blood and snot from her face.

“Marshall. Sir. I saw it,” Katie says, staring plaintively up at him, still shaking from the neural load. “I saw _everything_.”

Iverson crosses his arms across his chest suspiciously. “Explain.”

“I told you it would work.”

“Yes, you did,” the Marshall sighs. “Well, what’d you see?”

“Okay, well, since it’s just a chunk of the brain, I didn’t have access to everything, you know, I couldn’t see everything. It was-It was like...like, blips. Like frames of a movie. You know like, like when you blink your eyes over and over and you just get-you just get impressions, little pieces. It’s like bits of happenings and emotions and I, and I’m not entirely-”

The Marshall wheels over a stool and sits next to her.

“Holt. Holt,” he repeats, taking her by the arm. “Katie Holt. Look at me.”

Katie stops babbling into the middle distance and looks over at the Marshall.

“Slow down. I need you to tell me what you saw, and be _very_ specific.”

“Okay,” she gasps. “Okay, what I saw. I-I don’t think they’re acting on some primal, animalistic urge like we thought. I think they’re attacking us under distinct orders.”

Matt sucks in a sharp breath from behind her. “Is that possible?”

“Shut up, Holt,” Iverson directs impatiently, then returns his focus to Katie. “Keep talking.”

“The directors, these beings, they’re colonists. They’re conquerors. They take worlds, they consume them and then they just, th-they move onto the next. But they take their time. They’ve been here before, Marshall. Like, a trial run. _The dinosaurs_. But the atmosphere wasn’t right, they couldn’t adapt. So they waited and waited and waited and now, y’know, with ozone depletion and carbon monoxide ramping up, the atmosphere is conducive to them. It’s perfect. We basically terraformed the planet _for them_. That’s why they’re coming back, because the planet is _ready_.”

The Marshall raises his eyebrows and Katie plunges forward.

“See, all the attacks we’ve seen in the past years? That was the first wave. That was _nothing_. They were scouts. Categories one through four were sent ahead for population control. Take out the most densely populated areas and root out the vermin, _us_. The-the second wave? Those are the exterminators. And they _will_ finish the job!”

Iverson leans back in his chair, brows furrowing, concern etched into all of his features.

“And then? The new masters take the throne,” Katie finishes.

The Marshall stands from his seat and paces around the room without another word. Katie slumps forward in her chair, but Matt rushes to her in time to catch her, thrusting a glass of water in her hands.

“Drink, sis. Please.”

She takes a small sip to appease him. “Marshall, the reason we found the same DNA in those two samples we showed you before is because they’re _clones_. They’re copied and built and modified and bred for this singular task.”

Iverson stops in his tracks and spins around to face her.

“Holt, can you do it again?”

“ _What?!_ ” Matt shouts from her side.

“What?” Katie repeats dumbly.

“I need you to do it again, Katie.”

“I mean, I _can’t_ do it again. Unless you happen to have another Kaiju brain laying around here somewhere.”

“I think this is where I can be of service!” a bright voice calls from the back of the room. They all spin around to face Coran, strolling confidently through the lab.

“Pidge, do you still have that business card I gave you?” he asks.

“Yes,” she says slowly, narrowing her eyes.

“Well, it’s as I said when I gave it to you,” he says. “He owes me. I haven’t reported him yet, so I think he could consider this as me calling in my favor.”

The Marshall takes a step toward Coran. “You don’t mean who I think you mean, do you?” he asks dangerously.

“I’m truly sorry, sir, but I knew the contact would come in handy one day. And, if I didn’t tell you that I maintained correspondence, then you wouldn’t be seen as being responsible!” he says brightly, jabbing a finger in the air.

The Marshall backs down.

“Holt,” he says, returning his attention to Katie. “Take a day to rest, and then head into the city. We never had this discussion. As of right now, the plan is to drop another payload into the breach in an attempt to shut it down. If you succeed, perhaps next time we’ll get it right.”

He turns on a heel and leaves the room. Katie looks up at Coran questioningly.

“All you need to do is look for the symbol,” Coran instructs. “You’ll find him no problem.”

Katie looks over at Matt and Coran takes his leave, whisper quiet.

 

+++

 

Sighing, Keith sags back into his bed after tossing and turning for hours. It was childish of him, really, to make Shiro bring him back to his room so he could sulk, but he just didn’t know what else to do. He wanted so badly for their drift to work and to be the partner Shiro was convinced he could be. He just couldn’t handle seeing it again. And to add Shiro to the mix? It was unbearable. He couldn’t handle the idea of failing him like he did his family. It was too much.

It was good to be in the drift, though. It felt comfortable and not forced at all, unlike other drifts he had attempted back in the Academy. It was great to be able to be someone that Shiro could trust to talk him out of chasing his RABIT. Still, it begged the question, why couldn’t Keith come out of his? He trusts Shiro, this much he can admit. Shiro has proven stubborn and insistent, caring and reliable.

To be fair, Shiro had experience in drifts before. Keith never got as far before as they had in their attempt. He could barely get started before he would chase his demons and rip himself from his harness. He never forgot just how real things felt in the drift, how visceral and soul-cutting, but the edge had dulled after so much time away from trying. When he got to the end and found himself dropped into his deepest terrors again after so long, he just couldn’t handle it.

Keith flops around again, still tossing the images from their drift attempt around in his mind. Embarrassing situations aside, it was a hell of a feeling to be so deeply connected to someone else. He wouldn’t mind trying it again after taking some time to process and calm down from the experience. He could do without blowing a hole in the side of the base, though.

His tablet buzzes on his nightstand, and he checks it to find the message he’s both been dreading and expecting: _Psych evaluation for_ **_Kogane, Keith_ ** _scheduled at 1300 hours. Report to med bay for session._

He sighs again and puts the tablet back down on the table, then forces his eyes closed so he can maybe get some sleep before being forced to relive what just happened.

He wakes up again three hours later, and slowly dresses in the dimmed lights of his room. He trudges up to the med bay and sits on a rickety metal chair until finally, a door to one of the private offices opens and a man steps outside.

“Mister Kogane? I’m Doctor Ulaz. Please, come in.”

 

+++

 

The paper of the examination table crinkles loudly beneath Shiro as he shifts around, waiting to complete his physical. He stares at the medical posters and instruments littering the walls and fiddles with his cuticles in the cold room until the door finally swings open and the nurse sweeps in.

“Sorry about the wait, Officer Shirogane. We were processing in some paperwork for you, and it took a little longer than we thought.”

“Ah, that’s okay.”

She smiles. “Anyway, you’re good to go! I attached your appointment slip with the base therapist to the top, so you can add that to your calendar, but otherwise, you’re done here for the day.”

“Well, thank you,” he says, sliding down from the table. She smiles again and leaves the room, holding the door open for him as she goes. He steps out around her, and makes his way through the med bay to head back to his room. Another door down the hall opens up just as he gets to the nurse’s station, and he turns at the sound. Keith walks out of the room, looking a little ruffled, a little relieved, and very exhausted. They meet eyes across the corridor, and Keith’s shoulders slump down a bit.

_Ah. Ulaz._

Keith picks his way down the hallway and stops a few feet away from Shiro.

“Hey,” he greets sheepishly. “You okay?”

“What?” Shiro asks, before he remembers where they are. “Oh, yeah! No, no I’m fine. Just had a physical, that’s all.”

“Oh.”

“Are you? Okay, I mean.”

A few different emotions cross Keith’s face, but they settle eventually, landing on resignation. “Yeah, I think so. That was my first time ever, uh…”

“Seeing a therapist? Ulaz is great, though. I see him every couple weeks.”

“Yeah, he was...nice?”

Shiro huffs a small laugh at how surprised Keith sounds at giving the admission. He turns around and gestures toward the door. Keith nods and follows him out into the hall and back toward the dorms.

“Do you mind if I ask how it went?” Shiro asks.

“I’m not sure.”

“What do you mean?”

“He helped me understand why I went after the RABIT, and he told me it was okay? And that’s kind of weird to hear. But, you know, it was good. I think.”

Shiro chuckles at that. “I think you mean it was a lot.”

Keith lets out a deep breath. “Yeah, it was a lot.”

“Well, that’s understandable. But, I have to ask. Do you wanna try again?”

“Drifting, you mean?”

“Yeah. I know you just got back up, but I just really think we can do it.”

They stop in front of Keith’s door while he considers. But then he smiles, a fragile little thing. “Yeah. Yeah, I think we should.”

That’s good. That’s great, actually. It gives Shiro hope that they can help end this war.

“Great. In the meantime, I thought it might help if we do some more training together. Y’know, spend more time together?”

Shiro grins up at Shiro through his bangs. “You just wanna get me on the floor again.”

And just like that, he’s back.

“Maybe,” Shiro smiles down at him.

 

+++

 

Katie hikes her backpack further up her shoulders and shoots a wry look over at her brother.

“Well, Matty, you ready to go on an adventure?”

He smiles back at her, rolling his eyes. “I dunno what could possibly top drifting with a piece of a dead alien dragon monster, but I think we can give it a shot.”

“Well, then,” she says over her shoulder, shoving open the door to the complex and leading him down the path toward the bus depot, “sounds like we’ll just have to make this one exciting.”

They grab the bus into the city and take a couple seats at the back.

“Okay, but seriously,” Matt says, looking at the business card again, “how exactly are we going to just find this place by wandering around the city?”

“Ah, there’s the thing, Matty boy!” Katie answers him. “We’re not going to just wander around the city. I happen to know for a _fact_ that there’s a very healthy underground Kaiju trade based out of the Chinatown district. I bet you anything if we start there, we’ll find it.”

“There’s no way it could be that easy,” he answers.

“Just like you said there was no way the Kaiju were acting under orders?”

“Hey, I didn’t say there was no way, I just asked if it was really possible. Clarification, not a challenge.”

“Yeah, okay, bro.”

The bus pulls up to the stop they need and Katie nudges her brother’s shoulder. “This is it, let’s go.”

They clamber down from the bus and take off into the heart of the city.

“Katie, quick question. How do you know where you’re going, exactly?”

Katie snorts. “I ain’t gotta tell you nothin’.”

Matt laughs in disbelief. “I guess you don’t.”

“But also, there’s a really good restaurant in the district and I like going there sometimes.”

“Ah, of course,” he answers seriously.

They round a corner, and Matt stops short as they approach the archway at the beginning of the district. The lanterns are bright in the misty evening, glistening and shining in the moist air. String lights hung from building to building add to the overall ambiance, layering the streets in an ethereal glow. The smells of street food waft over the air, steam rising from their vendors carts. Katie watches as Matt excitedly darts his gaze around, taking in the sights and scents of the area.

“So,” he says conspiratorially, “what do we do?”

“We get some noodles,” Katie answers sagely.

“Noodles?”

“Noodles.”

She leads him to her favorite streetside restaurant, taking a seat at the counter and patting the stool to her right. Matt plunks down beside her and she orders them two bowls of her favorite noodles.

“Here’s the thing,” she says, leaning on her elbows, “people around here like to talk. But they also like to eat. Humans being human as they are, like to combine the two. I’ve heard a lot of interesting things sitting at this counter. I plan on hearing more.”

Matt straightens up. “So we just sit here until we hear something interesting?”

“Oh my god, no,” she laughs. “We ask.”

Their noodles arrive and Katie whips out the business card, handing it to the waitress. “Can you tell me about this?”

The waitress gives it a perfunctory glance and snorts. “You two wanna go to Bii Boh Bi’s? Aren’t you a little young for that sort of thing?”

Matt gives her a confused look, but Katie feels triumphant. Now they’re getting somewhere. The waitress hands the card back and Katie thanks her, tucking it back in her wallet.

“You see? Sometimes, you only have to ask. Told you this place was good.”

They finish their noodles and stand up, leaving money on the counter and heading deeper into the district. Along the way Katie asks a stand owner where, exactly, Bii Boh Bi’s is, and he sends them on their way, expression full of amusement. Katie ignores it in favor of the pursuit of their goal.

They continue down the street, past apartments and medicine shops, trinket stores and family-run restaurants. They skid over damp cobblestone and cold manhole covers, turning corners and tightening their jackets around their necks. Finally, they round one last corner and see it just ahead, a large medicine shop with the same logo as the business card: the silhouette of a car dealer mascot waving in the breeze. The sign is in English, surprisingly enough for a shop in the Chinatown district of a Russian city.

**BII BOH BI’S NATURAL SUPPLEMENTS**

Katie looks at her brother, takes a deep breath, and pushes inside.

A thin behind the counter turns at the sound of the bell chiming over the door as they enter. He gives them his best retail smile and calls across the counter, “Welcome to Bii Boh Bi’s, purveyor of the finest supplements available on the market!”

Matt chokes beside Katie and she gives him a hard pat on the back before stepping up to the counter.

“Hey there! Coran sent us to see Bii Boh Bi.”

The clerk narrows his eyes across the counter at her briefly before schooling his face back into place.

“Well, I’m not sure who that is, but can I interest you in our Kaiju horn supplement? You two look like young, healthy people, but there’s something to be said about what a little horn can do for you in the bedroom!”

“Well, he’s my brother, so that would be weird and gross, but also, I’m pretty sure you know exactly who I’m talking about. I need to see Bii Boh Bi,” she punctuates her sentence, slapping the business card down on the counter, “ _now_ , please.”

The guy drops the act, glaring at her openly now. He doesn’t say anything more, but he does reach under the counter for a panic button. Katie doesn’t have time to react before a hidden door at the back of the shop slides open, several sets of shelves covered in jars of pickled Kaiju parts behind it following suit. A slight, manic looking man hurries through the opening.

“Good luck,” the shopkeeper murmurs at them.

“What have I _told_ you about hitting the panic button on accident, Bii Boh Bi?! There is an eighty-three-point-five percent chance that you will do it one day, and we will stop reacting when we truly need to!”

He stops short, looking Katie and Matt up and down.

“Although, it would appear that this is the universe in which you truly needed to hit the button. Who are you?”

Matt steps forward, a hand held out before him. “I’m Matt and this is Pidge. Coran sent us to cash in a favor from you...I’m sorry, what was your name again?”

“I never gave it in the first place, but I am Slav.”

He ignores Matt’s hand and turns back around toward the door.

“I suppose you should follow me,” he says, leading them to the back.

They step through a short hallway directly into a flurry of activity. There are tables scattered about in spartan workstations full of Kaiju parts, people hovering over them in aprons and goggles, dismantling and salvaging what they can. Runners carry baskets overloaded with Kaiju flesh and bone through the room, back and forth from each table to a different room further back. Matt flits excitedly through the action, taking it all in.

“Oh my god, Katie! Katie, this place is heaven!” He stumbles over to an upright storage tank fitted into a support column. Inside floats a spongy Kaiju organ, in perfect condition. “Katie, _look_! That’s a lymph gland from a Category Two! An-and holy shit!”

He runs up to one of the workstations, where a man is filing away at a bony plate with a dremel tool. “Is this is a cuticle?! In _mint condition_?!”

Katie hangs back, taking in the room at large, full of wonder, but cautious all the same. She laughs lightly as Matt spins around to another table. A man is walking away, carrying a wriggling, squealing bug - roughly the size of a toy poodle - toward another station. “Is that a _skin parasite_?! I’ve never seen them alive before! They always die as soon as the Kaiju do! I thought you couldn’t keep them alive!”

“You can if you soak them in ammonia,” Slav drawls from beside Katie. She and Matt both jump, having forgotten he was even there. She gets a chance to finally look him up and down. He’s an extremely short man, no taller than she is, wearing a burgundy crushed velvet suit with gold plated shoes and the most ridiculous dark sunglasses she’s ever seen.

“Forgive my rudeness, but what do you want?” he asks.

“We’re looking for Bii Boh Bi,” Katie says, holding out the business card. “We were told he was here.”

Slav draws himself up to his full (as full as possible, anyway) height, and steps forward to Katie, suddenly flanked by two of the biggest, burliest meathead lackeys it would appear he could find.

“Who wants to know?” he asks her slowly. She takes a few beats to answer, which turns out to be a few beats too long, because Slav pulls a switchblade from his jacket pocket, twirling it in the air before holding it up to her cheek.

“Coran sent us! Okay?!”

He withdraws his knife and she stumbles a few steps back.

“Awesome! Fantastic! That’s just _fantastic_! So, I take it you’re Bii Boh Bi?”

“No, as I told you, I’m Slav. In this universe, there is a ninety-nine-point-three-five percent chance that I would be caught doing what I do without a pseudonym. So, I took it from the namesake of the establishment that I front under. Bii Boh Bi’s Natural Supplements. Who would expect a Kaiju operation to be run here? Nobody important, is the answer!”

He’s oddly smug about his cover, and he’s still holding the knife, so Katie holds in her comment about how James-Bond-Super-Villainous that makes him sound.

“Now,” he says, turning to observe one of the workstations, “tell me what you want before I skin you alive and feed you to the skin louse.”

“We believe you have something we need. Coran said you owe him a favor, and we’re here to call it in.”

Matt comes to stand behind Katie, a calming presence at her back while she tries furiously to not be murdered. Slav looks them over and then tugs them outside onto a balcony.

“And I believe ground Kaiju horn powder is five-hundred bucks a pound. Now, what do you want?”

Matt interjects before Katie can open her mouth. “We need access to a Kaiju brain. A _complete_ Kaiju brain. Fully intact.”

“No, no, no. This is an impossibility,” Slav argues, shaking his head. “The Kaiju’s skull is too dense, by the time you drill through to it-”

“The brain’s rotted away, we know,” Matt finishes for him. “But we’re talking about the _secondary_ brain. We all _know_ that the Kaiju are so large that they need two brains to move around, like a dinosaur. We want _that brain_.”

“Hmm,” Slav acknowledges, leaning back on the handrail. He thrusts a hand out toward them. “What in the universe do even want that for? Every part of the Kaiju sells. You can sell Kaiju mucus and call it an aphrodisiac and twenty-three-point-two percent of the population would buy into it. So, why the secondary brain?”

“Well, that’s classified,” Katie says, crossing her arms across her chest. “So I couldn’t tell you, even if I wanted to.”

Slav mimics her movements, sinking further into the handrail and crossing his own arms. Katie pulls off her glasses, wiping them on the front of her shirt.

“But it _is_ pretty cool,” she says, plopping her glasses back on her face. Slav pulls his knife back out and leans away from the handrail. He focuses in on Katie, flipping the knife through his fingers and taking slow, deliberate steps toward her. Something about being carved up like a Thanksgiving turkey doesn’t sit quite right with her.

“Okay! Fine!” she shouts, throwing her hands up in the air. “We’re going to drift with it.”

Slav drops the knife. “Are you kidding me?! That’s impossible. The neural load would-”

“Kill us, yeah, yeah, blahblahblah,” she cuts him off. “But here’s the thing: I already _have_.”

“You already have? Drifted with a Kaiju?!”

“Well, not a full brain,” she admits. “We only had a piece of the brain that we were able to salvage, but I was able to connect with it for-”

“ARE YOU STUPID?!” Slav shouts in her face. “Are you an idiot?! What would make you think that was a good idea?!”

“Katie glares down at him, crossing her arms again. “We needed information. I knew how to get it. So I went and got it.”

“Do you not understand what you’ve done? A drift goes _both ways_. Yes, you saw what the Kaiju had, but the Kaiju also saw what _you have_! How could you be so reckless?!”

“What does that matter?” she demands. “The brain stem fried out as soon as the drift was over.”

“It _matters_ ,” he answers, jabbing her in the chest, “because Kaiju are _hive-mind beings_. What one sees, the others see! What one knows, the others know! Are you not a scientist? How are you unaware of this fact?!”

The world rocks beneath Katie’s feet. She had no idea. None of them did. Nobody in the entirety of the PPDC network clued in on the fact that it might be so. And yet, it makes total sense. How else could the attacks be coordinated just so? How else could the monsters change their patterns up so much? And of course they would need to pass the information along from the scouts to the masters. Corpses can’t do that. Katie immediately feels like an idiot. She looks up at Matt, eyes mirroring his in widened horror. Slav sighs.

“A Kaiju was just taken down inside the city. I’ll take you to the site so you can clean up the mess you’ve made. But you will tell Coran, with one-hundred percent certainty, that this and all future debts are paid.”

“That seems fair,” Matt agrees.

“Then let’s go before we waste any more precious time on explaining the immense mistake you’ve made.”

Slav whips back through the shop with the Holt siblings following closely behind, and they spin out into the misty night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> we're almost there, y'all!
> 
> if you've been keeping up with this, thank so much, i really appreciate it!  
> if i could be so bold, i'd like to ask you to leave a comment and let me know if you're enjoying this lil baby. i'd really love you if you did! <3
> 
> see you next week for the grand finale!


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> a conclusion

_“A known anomaly after Drifting is called "Ghost-Drifting"; confirmed by the likes of Dr. Caitlin Lightcap herself. "Ghost Drifting" is said to be "unanticipated consequence" of the Neural Handshake. Pilots are said to find that their link remains somewhat active, though muted, after they’ve disconnected from the hardware._

_Pilots who Drift with one another long enough begin to adopt certain personality traits of their partner, but their own core personality and consciousness remains intact. They also have an uncanny way of knowing what the other is feeling or thinking without the expression through words. Crimson Typhoon's pilots, the Wei Tang Brothers, displayed uncanny synchronicity between each other during physical activities such as basketball._ _Predicting the thoughts and moves of a co-pilot is another side effect of the Drift.”_

_-[PPDC Ranger Training Manual](http://pacificrim.wikia.com/wiki/Drift) _

 

+++

 

They rush through the wet streets of the Chinatown district until they turn a corner, and suddenly, everything Katie sees is covered in Kaiju. Kaiju posters, Kaiju shops stuffed to the brim with all sorts of trinkets and tinctures and bones. The streets are bustling, people rushing back and forth, hissing quiet sentences at each other, as if their conversations were precious gems that must be protected at all times.

It takes a few more minutes of trailing Slav before Katie realizes where they are.

“The bone slums,” she whispers. She looks up around herself and finally sees it. Throughout the roofs and threaded between power lines, the gigantic bones of a Kaiju rib cage jut into the night. Each individual bone is supported by carefully built scaffolding, meant to last, and in between each spiked protrusion rests signs of unending life. Clothes lines are screwed into the spaces between, television antennas are mounted on the tips of the bones, upper levels of buildings are created around the gigantic calcifications, billboards mounted to the sides.

“Katie, holy shit,” Matt murmurs beside her. “I heard stories, but I never thought-”

“Life springs eternal,” Slav inserts. “Come on, we’re almost to the site.”

They move in silence until they turn a final corner and come upon a block of the city, wrapped in caution tape and humming with work. In the very center, a Kaiju corpse lays, spread out across torn buildings and streets, multiple people climbing and cutting and inspecting it.

“Here she is, kids. A fresh Mutavore,” Slav calls, ducking under the caution tape and beckoning them to follow. “PPDC took her down about an hour ago.”

“How did you get them to let you have the corpse?” Katie asks, approaching a work truck and peering at the Kaiju pieces inside.

“You called in Coran’s favor from me. This is why he has it.”

Katie doesn’t understand. Slav looks back at her and she raises an eyebrow in question.

Slav sighs and continues. “My organization took over Kaiju clean-up for the city. We donate generously to the PPDC under the pseudonym of our removal company. Coran found out what we do with the corpses after clean up, and in return for keeping quiet, I promised he could call in any favor, any time. You are the favor.  _This_ is the favor. After this - if there is an after this, because there is an eighty-three-point-two-five percent chance this drift will kill you - we are even. In letting you do this, I’m letting you ruin my source of income. Be thankful you’re even here.”

Matt gulps heavily beside Katie. Now she has questions. _Big_ questions. Why in the hell did Coran not report this? He never does anything without good reason, so what must that reason be? How in the world has this man been able to operate this crazy shadow conspiracy of a company completely under the radar? The Marshall has to know, right? Also, _will_ this drift kill them? She doesn’t think so, her math checked out pretty well after she extrapolated the effects from her last drift out to a full secondary brain and two people, but who knows?

There’s really only one way to find out.

“Well, then,” she says, “let’s fucking do this.”

They approach the Kaiju and Slav picks up a walkie talkie from a nearby crew member.

“I have a team in there already. They carve the Kaiju up from the inside out. It’s easier to get at the guts that way.”

“Oh, of course. That must be how you get full cuticles intact,” Katie posits, watching two crew members pluck skin louse from the corpse and drop them in tanks of ammonia.

“Precisely,” Slav answers, cranking the volume of the speaker in his hand. “Boys! We need to get at the secondary brain.”

“Alright, boss, but we’re picking up some weird waves in here!”

“What kind of weird waves?”

“Well, our scanners are showing a weird pulse, but there’s nothing in here!”

Katie hands her backpack over to Matt. “Hey, get the rigs ready. We’re gonna need to get a probe in that brain as soon as they pull it.”

“I got you, gremlin!” he answers, and takes off toward a group of the crew, asking for the parts he needs to complete the neural rig on site.

Katie turns back to Slav, listening in on his conversation.

“Well, if the pulse isn’t affecting you, keep working!”

Gurgling plays through the speaker followed by terrified screaming. The Kaiju corpse’s head quivers, and Slav takes off running. Katie looks back up at the Kaiju just in time to watch its mouth forced open, a-

“A baby,” Katie says in dawning realization. “The Kaiju was pregnant!”

The alien infant tumbles out of its mother’s mouth, rolling around in its own fluids for a bit before getting purchase and scrambling upright. The crowd of workers haul ass down the street to get away, but Katie is frozen, unblinking, in the face of one of her greatest wishes. She and Matt always did want to see one of these things up close and personal. _Goddamn, they’re fucking morons._

Katie turns tail and runs, the baby alien seemingly headed straight for her. The streets are covered in debris from when the PPDC took the mother down, and she trips over a brick, sprawling forward. She flips over and scrambles back on her hands and ass, trying to get away, when suddenly, the baby stops. Its umbilical cord is wrapped around its throat, stretched to the very limit. The Kaiju collapses, writhing and sputtering, and finally breathes its last.

Katie watches it die before her.

She stands, slowly approaching with a hand out, working up the courage to touch the corpse. From over her shoulder, a switchblade comes whizzing by, embedding itself in the monster’s snout.

“There you have it!” Slav announces, walking forward to face the Kaiju. “I knew that would happen! The lungs weren’t fully formed yet! There was only a ten-point-one-three percent chance that the baby would survive, and here we are!”

Katie doesn’t point out that he’s shaking and his voice wavers through his entire speech.

“Katie!” Matt calls from the sidewalk. “Are you okay?!”

She turns her attention back to the Kaiju. “Yeah, I’m okay.”

“Great! We’re good to go when you’re ready, then!”

Slav is still pacing around the head.

“One look!” he shouts, startling Katie from her thoughts. “That’s all I needed to know!”

He plucks the knife from the Kaiju’s flesh, wiping it on his sleeve. “Unattractive creatures, Kaiju. Anyway, as I was sayin-”

He doesn’t get to finish his thought. In one last defiant act, the Kaiju comes alive, plucking Slav from the ground and raising its body up to crush and crunch and chew him straight down its throat, swallowing and choking. It pulls up to its full height, rushing forward and tugging the umbilical cord tighter around its neck, and with a final, angry roar, it crashes to the ground. Fully dead this time.

Katie looks over at Matt, who looks back at her with wide eyes. He makes his way to her side, bending down to pick up a gold-plated shoe, all that remains of Slav.

“Well,” he says, tossing the shoe back down and regarding the monster before them. “Looks like we have a fresh brain now.”

Katie laughs manically, both at the stress and the situation. “Let’s do this already.”

They grab the cart with their equipment and tug it over, planting the neural probe straight through the still-spongy bone plates of the baby Kaiju’s head. Matt flips on their machine and gets it started up with their quick and ugly drift program.

They each take a neural rig and slap it down over their heads, looking determinedly at each.

“You ready for this?”

“Ready as I’ll ever be.”

“Alright then! Initiating neural handshake in five...four...three...two...one! Love ya, Matty!”

Katie reaches out and engages the drift.

The rush of blue and neurons and memories slam through both of their minds. This time, it’s shared frames between them. Katies memories of school and home and family, Matt’s memories of books and friends and awards. Twin experiences from different perspectives: camping trips, vacations abroad, visiting their father’s lab. The memories twist and shake and they’re pushed forward into the Kaiju’s mind, ugly branching nerves and visions of carnage.

They watch as Kaiju are built and bolted together with flesh and muscle and bone. They see claws bending and twisting and pushing. They watch the pulse of life pumped into new soldiers. Big soldiers. Bigger-than-they’ve-ever-seen soldiers. They rush and rush and turn and tumble through the drift until they see the long, pulsing hallway of the throat pushing and urging and shoving them through. They keep spinning and turning until, finally, a flash of light greets them, and they’re forced from the drift through the other side.

They both come to, shaking and gasping, noses bleeding but none too worse for wear. Matt seems to be a little worse off than Katie’s feeling. To be fair, she’s done this once before. She shoves the rig off her head and rushes over to him, helping him remove his own.

“You good, buddy?”

“Y-y-yeah, I j-just need a s-second,” he answers, still twitching, as she lowers him to the ground. The minute they touch down, Matt rolls to the side and hurls.

“Yeah, well, that’ll happen,” Katie says, rubbing his back. He finishes up, wiping his mouth on the back of his hand, and snaps back up to face her.

“The drift! You saw it, right?!”

“Yeah, I saw it! We have to warn them!” Katie shouts backs, grabbing fistfuls of Matt’s shirt and tugging him closer. “The Jaegers! The breach! Th-the payload!”

“It won’t work!”

 

+++

 

A fist glances off his cheek and Keith laughs, spinning backward and out of Shiro’s reach.

“You’re gonna have to try harder than that to get me down.”

“I just don’t wanna scratch up that pretty face.”

Keith huffs, blowing a strand of hair out of his face. “What did we say about the flirting?”

Shiro straightens himself out and lunges forward, yanking Keith back by his arm and flipping him down onto his back.

“Hmm, I’m pretty sure it was just _you_ that said anything about flirting. I still don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Keith jumps back up, kicking out toward Shiro’s knee. Shiro catches him by the ankle and flips him to the floor once more. Keith slams his fist down on the mat and forces himself back up again.

“That’s bullshit, Takashi.”

Shiro smiles. Keith lurches forward on the balls of his feet, striking out with both hands. He connects, but his form is sloppy and he barely manages a shove. Shiro takes advantage of his distraction, grabbing him by both wrists and spinning him around, crushing Keith’s back against his broad chest.

“I mean, I feel like we covered this in the drift.”

Keith sighs, wriggling from his grip and spinning around to face him, hands fisted down at his sides. Shiro senses the subject he’s about to broach and lets him take a second to gather his thoughts. They’re big thoughts. They’re tangled thoughts. There are a _lot_ of thoughts. He takes a deep breath.

“If we’re gonna try again, if they even _let us_ try again, we need to talk about that drift.”

Shiro’s smile tightens, but remains on his face, shrinking a bit in size. “You’re right.”

“So let’s get the obvious out of the way: we’re seriously into each other.”

Shiro bursts out laughing. “I guess that’s one way to put it.”

“Crushes aside, we need to figure out how to deal with that and with all-” he gestures wildly around the room- “ _this_.”

“Well, look,” Shiro says, stepping forward to place a heavy hand on his shoulder, “Lance and Hunk are married, and they handle it just fine. We’re nowhere near that, and I know it’s still a little awkward, and we’re still getting to know each other, but I don’t see why we can’t handle it, too. I really like you? And I know you feel the same way, so why don’t we just...work from that?”

Keith sighs in relief. Knowing that there are no real expectations helps to settle something in the back of his mind. Like now, he no longer has to try and perform in any sort of fashion. He can just be him. He can be his own tangled, worried, trying-really-fucking-hard self, and Shiro will accept it and work with it.

“Okay,” Keith smiles. “We can do that.”

“Great!” Shiro smiles back. “Now, the bigger issue. That RABIT.”

Keith locks up. He knew it was coming, but it’s still a scary thing to think about. He doesn’t even fully remember it. He just knows the fallout was _bad_.

“I, uh, I really chased the fuck out of it, huh?”

Shiro snorts quietly. “That you did. Care to tell me why?”

He sounds a little hurt, and Keith gets it. He was able to pull Shiro from a chase. Shiro knew that he could trust him enough to help him through his worst memories, and being unable to return the favor must have him feeling pretty low. He has to know that it wasn’t like that. Keith has to make him know.

“Look,” Keith starts, pushing his hair from his eyes, “it’s not like you probably think it is. It’s not that I don’t trust you. If anything, you’ve kind of forced me to understand that I can.”

Shiro’s gaze softens, an amused quirk settling in at the corner of his lips.

“It’s just that I wasn’t expecting to see you in it, too,” Keith finishes.

“What do you mean?” Shiro asks, stepping forward to put both hands on his shoulders now.

“I saw them, right? And I knew it wasn’t them. I knew it was my head playing tricks on me. But then, you were there, and you were shouting, and I wasn’t sure what you were saying? It was like you were shouting for me, too. And then you were in there, crashing around with them too, and I couldn’t protect any of you.”

A light ignites behind Shiro’s eyes. He must get it now.

“You felt pretty angry in there.”

“Because I felt helpless.”

Shiro squeezes his shoulders. “You know you aren’t. You’re the strongest person I’ve ever met. I trust you. I _know_ you’re reliable. Those things you saw? They’re fucking terrifying. But now you know what they are. Now you know that when you see me in there, it’s me reaching out to help you. You don’t need to go it alone. We’ll do it together. That’s the point of the drift.”

A tear slips down Keith face and he nods. Shiro tugs him forward into a hug.

“Yeah, okay.”

Keith and Shiro jerk apart as the Kaiju alarm blares out overhead. Their comms tablets both light up with the same message. They both read it and gasp.

_Active breach event confirmed: Category V Kaiju - Galra_

 

+++

 

It’s really getting annoying, Lance thinks, how many good times are being cut short by Kaiju these days. At least it didn’t involve anyone’s dick this time around. Little victories. It _did_ , however, involve a healthy stack of cash he was lining his hot little pockets with courtesy of Allura and an intense game of poker.

The alarm continues to whine while he finishes shoving change into his pants and takes off toward the Shatterdome. He and Allura ride the elevator up toward their respective Drivesuit decks. The activity in the garage is deafening today.

“Hey, Princess, you notice anything off today?”

“Well,” she answers, “aside from the repairs to the garage, I would say that the amount of movement in the station is positively insane.”

“Right? It seems like it’s way more than normal.”

“It truly does,” she agrees as the elevators comes to a stop and the doors slide open. The Marshall is standing before them, another unusual event.

“Your partners are already inside suiting up, so they’ve already heard this news.”

Allura looks to Lance with an eyebrow raised.

“It’s a cat five,” the Marshall continues. Allura gasps in surprise. Lance agrees. “We’ve classified it as Galra.”

Lance and Allura look to each other one final time before hauling ass to their Drivesuit rooms. Lance skids through the door to find Hunk already suited and waiting for him. Lance stumbles forward, dropping a kiss to his husband’s face on the way by, tugging his clothes off as he moves. He comes to a stop in place, practically hopping into the suit the techs hold out for him. They lock him in and set him up next to Hunk, placing their Spinal Clamps and engaging the Relay Gel sequence. Fully suited and ready to go, the pilots of Paladin Danger rush forward into their Conn-Pod.

“Looks like a big one, babe,” Hunk observes, climbing into his harness, boot clips latching around his feet.

“Looks like,” Lance answers, following suit. Techs flood the cabin and complete their connection to the Danger’s systems. The feedback cradles hum to life around them, their HUD flickering into existence before them.

“You think this one’ll be okay?” Hunk asks him.

“It’ll be more than okay with our best on the hunt!” Shay’s bright voice sings out through their comms.

Lance laughs and reaches out for the button. “Shay, darling, dearest, perfect blessed angel! Don’t inflate his ego, he can’t take it.”

“That’s no way to talk about yourself, honey,” Hunk says. Shay laughs overhead.

“If it helps, the weather is terrible, the ocean is churning, and you’re looking down the chomping teeth of one pissed off alien!”

“That doesn’t help at all, Shay, thanks,” Lance answers coolly.

“Well at least you’re not going it alone today! Castle is online and ready to go! Marshall Iverson is on deck! Jaegers, prepare to drop!”

Their techs leave them behind, their pod door shuts and latches, and they get a few seconds before the stomach churning rush of falling down to their Jaeger’s body hits them full force. They land on her shoulders and latch into place. In the stall next to them, The Castle’s Conn-Pod does the same.

“Alright, Danger, Pod-link confirmed. Ditto to you, Castle!” Shay calls. “Engaging pilot-to-pilot sequences!”

_“Pilot-to-pilot connection protocol sequence engaged.”_

Paladin Danger and The Castle wheel out through the garage doors into the blustery night. Some background noise pulses through their comms before the Marshall’s voice finally takes over.

“Marshall Iverson here, prepare for neural handshake.”

“Starting in fifteen seconds!” Shay confirms and begins the countdown.

The count goes quickly this time. Normally, Lance feels every single second slip by, anticipatory and giddy. Today, he’s tense. A Category V is a first. Even with two Jaegers, they don’t know how this one is going to go. They don’t know how the battle will play out. He’s all nerves and tension until finally, he hears-

_“Neural handshake initiated.”_

They sink into the drift, but it’s a little shaky. They’re both nervous, and it’s throwing them off their game.

_C’mon, baby, we can do this._

_I’m trying, I’m trying! Just gimme a second._

Lance takes a deep breath and shakes out his hands. He imagines flicking the tension away from the tips of his fingers, and there. He feels much better. He sinks back into the drift, less tense, and ready to go.

_“Two pilots engaged in neural bridge.”_

“Neural handshake strong and holding! That’s what I like to see!” Shay calls out to them.

Lance lifts his hand control cradle and goes through his calibration sequence, Hunk doing the same beside him. They feel nervous, but they’re here together, and that makes all the difference. They can do this. They’ve got each other’s backs.

“Left hemisphere, calibrated!”

“Right hemisphere, calibrated!”

They wait for a second until Coran finally chimes in over the comms, “We’re all set over here, Danger! We’ll take your point today!”

“Copy!” Lance shouts back.

“Rangers, your orders are to hold the miracle mile off Vladivostok, copy?” the Marshall says, gravity and authority weighting his voice.

“Copy!”

“Copy!”

“Show them what you’re made of!” Iverson orders, and with that, they’re turned loose.

Paladin Danger tears off through the water, The Castle on their six, until they reach the location of the breach. When they arrive, the storm continues to pound against them, stirring up the sea and crashing lightning all around, but they don’t see it.

“Castle, do you have visual?” Hunk asks.

“Nothing! It’s on the readout, but we can’t see it!” Allura shouts back.

“Okay, well, let’s circl-” Lance is cut off by the giant, hideous head of a Kaiju bursting through the ocean’s surface between their machines. Its skin is tinged a sickly purple, vaguely resembling a hammerhead shark. Blue energy leaks from its mouth in foreboding puffs, trailing out behind its head as it moves. Behind it, three whip-like tails emerge from the depths, snapping and waving through the cold night air.

“Fall back!” Hunk shouts, tugging his controls and engaging their Plasmacaster.

“We’ve got you, we’ve got you!” Allura calls, The Castle’s Chainsword emerging from her side. She’s just a fraction of a second too slow, though, and shared horror slices through the Danger’s drift as the triplet tails of the Galra whip through the air, curling around The Castle.

The Kaiju raises the Jaeger overhead, and throws it down into the ocean, like a child’s toy at the hands of a bully. Allura and Coran yell through the comms as they sink below the surface, Lance and Hunk shouting back, until finally, nothing. The comms go painfully silent and briefly, The Castle disappears from the SONAR display.

“Castle!” Hunks shouts out. “Castle, come in!”

“Castle, do you read?!” Lance tries.

Suddenly, a slow blip reappears on their screen, bearing the signature of The Castle.

“We’re alright, boys!” Coran answers, and Hunk and Lance breathe a sigh of relief. “She threw us in a hydrothermal vent! Feisty one, that Kaiju! We’re pretty banged up, though. Sorry fellas, it looks like you’re on your own out there now!”

“Oh, no you’re not!” a new voice calls out overhead. Shock and surprise zings through their drift and the Paladin Danger spins around to regard the newcomer.

 

+++

 

Shiro and Keith tensely watch The Castle and Paladin Danger head out to face the new Category V Kaiju. Nobody could tell them why the name Galra was chosen. Perhaps that’s for the best. The Danger manages to scrape a drift together, following a shaky, nerve-filled start. The Castle has no issues, however, drawing together just as clinically strong as ever.

They wade out into the water, but the Kaiju waits to break through the breach. The systems detect it, they know it’s there, but it’s like it’s...waiting for something. For what, though, Shiro just can’t suss out. He chances a glance to his left, and catches Keith’s eye. He can see the cogs turning in his head, too, trying to piece together what’s going on down there. The Jaegers arrive, searching in confusion, and the doors to the control room burst open.

“Marshall!” Katie Holt shouts into the room, causing everyone to spin around momentarily. She’s rain-soaked, covered in dried blue and blood, and dragging an extremely weary looking Matt Holt behind her. Iverson looks completely unsurprised to see her.

“Holt. Did you succeed?”

“Sir, it’s not going to work! Dropping another payload _won’t work_!”

Shiro’s eyebrows jump before he can control his reaction. If nuking the breach won’t close it, then what chance do they have?

“The only way anything can pass through the throat is if it has Kaiju DNA! And, sir, _they know the plan_. They know what we’re going to do!”

The Marshall looks surprised. He takes a moment, turning back to the feed of the action outside, just as the Kaiju bursts forth from the water. He turns back around.

“What do we do?”

“We tie a bomb to a corpse, sir. That’s the only way,” she answers.

“ _That_ corpse would do nicely,” Matt interjects, gesturing to the Kaiju on screen.

“Yes, well, there’s one problem with that, Holts. Those Jaegers don’t have payloads on board.”

The action in the room halts, awaiting Iverson’s next order while everyone watches the Jaegers sidestep the Galra.

“Send us,” Keith says, quiet and even in the green-blue glow of the workstations around them. “Marshall, you have to send us.”

Shiro’s heart stops.

The Marshall looks at Keith, sizing him up in the way he does when he knows he’s being forced into a decision he’s not quite ready to make.

“Son, you failed the last drift you tried, and now you want to go save the world?”

Shiro steps forward, placing a hand on Keith’s shoulder. “Sir, it seems we have no choice. You need to get that payload out there, we have a Jaeger ready and waiting, we can _do this_. Trust us.”

Keith nods determinedly next to him.

Iverson takes a fraction of a second, closing his eyes and rubbing his temples. He opens them again and looks at Katie.

“Holt, will this work?”

“ _Yes._ We saw it, sir.”

“Fine,” he sighs. “Go suit up, we’ll tow you out.”

Shiro tugs Keith forward, and together, they run up to the Drivesuit deck.

“Can you do this, Keith?” Shiro asks as hey turn the corner into the Drivesuit room.

“Absolutely,” he replies, eyebrows set in determination, and begins peeling off his clothes. “We can do this.”

They worm into their suits, the Black Lion’s team buzzing about them. Shiro hardly notices, though. He’s fully focused on Keith as they get dressed, hinges and buckles latching into position. Their helmets click into place and Spinal Clamps get affixed to their backs, beginning the Relay Gel process. Fully dressed and prepped, they step forward through the open door of their Conn-Pod.

They climb up into their rigs, keeping silent the whole time. Keith’s face is grim, set into a mask designed to hide his nerves. Their boot clamps click them into place. Shiro reaches out and takes his hand.

“Hey,” he says softly, and Keith looks up. They maintain eye contact as their techs come around behind them to link them into the systems. “We’ve got this.”

Keith smiles and the Conn-Pod comes to life. They look forward at their HUD, looping their hands into their control harnesses.

“Okay, my favorite, sweet boys,” Shay says through the comms. “Just like last time. Prepare for drop!”

The Conn-Pod is sealed up tight, and down they go, plummeting toward the ground until they land on their Jaeger, sealing the connections.

“Ugh,” Shiro groans, “I’ll honestly never get used to that.”

Keith coughs from beside him. “Yeah, well, hopefully you won’t have to after today.”

The noise outside the Jaeger dies and the comms come to life again with Shay’s voice.

“Your pod-link is confirmed. How are we feeling, boys?”

“Ready to do this, Shay!” Shiro answers.

“Good. Engaging pilot-to-pilot sequence.”

_“Pilot-to-pilot connection protocol sequence engaged.”_

Their Jaeger wheels out into the stormy bay, PPDC helicopters swinging cables overhead. Techs drop down to attach the connections and prepare the vehicles for the tow.

“Shirogane, Kogane, this is Marshall Iverson, prepare for neural handshake.”

“Starting in fifteen seconds,” Shay confirms, a little more soothing than normal. “fourteen...thirteen...twelve...”

“Okay, Keith. We can do this,” Shiro says.

“eleven…”

“I know we can.”

“ten…”

“I’m here for you.”

“nine…”

“Ditto.”

“eight…”

“You gonna be alright?”

“seven…”

“Yeah.”

“six…”

“Good. Me, too, I think.”

“five…”

“Great.”

“four…”

“See you in there.”

“three…”

“Hey Shiro?”

“two…”

“Yeah?”

“one…”

“Shut up, please.”

_“Neural handshake initiated.”_

 

+++

 

The connection sings to life between them. Hazy blue floods their minds, sparking thoughts and memories floating through. Keith leaving school, working the wall, being whisked away by the Marshall to fight in a war he had long abandoned. Shiro waking up with a new arm, settling into a new position as the base’s coordinating officer, receiving Keith’s file and being struck incredulous.

They keep pushing. They meet. They spar. They drift. They chase. They fail.

The connection thrums with reassurance and resolve. They can do this. They see Shiro’s memories of losing his partner and his Jaeger and his arm. They glance past it and watch Keith battling his demons as he sees his family crushed and burned and drowning and destroys part of the hangar. This time, they’re ready. They latch onto each other in the confusion and sadness and regret. They fill each other with warmth and light and support.

They tug away to the bright light at the end of the tunnel, twisting together and turning over and pushing pushing pushing until finally, _finally_ -

_“Two pilots engaged in neural bridge.”_

Their eyes snap open, victory surrounding them and accomplishment tying them together. They smile at each other, big, bright, shining displays.

“THAT’S A DRIFT, Y’ALL!” Shay shouts happily through the comms. “I’m proud of you, boys!”

 _It’s good to have you back_ , Shiro thinks through the drift.

 _It’s good to be back_ , Keith answers.

“Good job, boys,” Iverson says over the comms, voiced tinged with relief. “Let’s get you out there.”

The helicopters take off, lifting the Black Lion in all her full glory, setting off for the breach. Their systems link into the command channels, bridging them into the conversation taking place between The Castle and Paladin Danger.

“...Sorry fellas, it looks like you’re on your own out there now!”

“Oh, no you’re not!” Shiro shouts, as they make their approach. The Danger spins in place to watch their approach. “Fall back until we detach!”

“Yes, sir!” Hunk calls back. “You ready to fuck this thing’s day up?!”

“Ready as we’ll ever be, I think,” he answers.

“Alright, everyone, listen up!” the Marshall calls through the channel, silencing the din. “Today...Today, at the edge of our hope, at the end of our time, we have chosen not only to believe in ourselves, but in each other! Today, there’s not a man or woman here that shall stand alone.”

The Kaiju falls back as if it hears the speech as well. It walks semi-circles in the water, watching the Jaegers across from it.

“Today, we face the monsters at our door and bring the fight to them! Today, we are _cancelling the apocalypse_!”

Shouts and cheers play out in the background.

_You ready for this, Keith?_

_Only if you are, Takashi._

Amusement plays through the drift, and they turn to face their opponent. Paladin Danger does the same, and it’s as if that action alone gives the green light. The Galra charges forward, roaring and snapping, dripping venom from its mouth. Behind it, The Castle reemerges from the water, badly damaged, but upright all the same.

_Alright, then. Let’s see what this baby can do!_

_On it!_

Keith engages his hand controls, and a gleaming blade slides out from the Lion’s left hand. It gleams dangerously in the night, singing death out into the air. Shiro yanks back on his hand cradle, and from his side emerges a Plasmacaster the likes of which he’s never seen before. It’s sleek and severe, charging immediately upon startup. Energy gathers at its end and Shiro smiles sharply.

The Galra turns to face them and lets out an ear-shattering screech, charging forward to meet them. They run forward, movements in tandem as they control their Jaeger with ease and precision. Just as the Kaiju reaches them, Keith thrusts his hand out, meeting it blade first. He lands a shallow slice straight across the Galra’s throat, and as it stumbles back, Keith brings his arm down heavily, slashing through the monster’s left shoulder. He recoils and slashes up, catching the right shoulder, nearly dismembering the creatures arms in one deadly move. A hint of arousal tumbles through the drift.

_Really, Shiro?_ _Now?_

_Sorry, sorry, didn’t mean to!_

_Yeah, great, just focus!_

_Got it, got it._

They pin the Galra down, but just as Keith rears back to deliver a finishing blow to its head, it dives down, screaming into the water. Moments later, a new Kaiju bursts through the water’s surface.

_“Category IV Kaiju in striking radius; Identity confirmed as: Raiju.”_

“Finally, something new!” Lance calls through the comms as the Paladin Danger dives in front of the Lion, distracting the new Kaiju. “We got ya, guys!”

Paladin Danger pulls out its Chain Sword and engages its Anti-Kaiju Missile turrets, chest cracking open in the face of the Raiju. They rear back, striking out with the sword, and puncturing straight through the Kaiju’s abdomen.

There’s no time for celebration, however, as the Galra breaks back through the water in front of the Black Lion, as if it hadn’t just had its ass handed to it. Annoyance floats through the drift, both pilots having had quite enough of the fight. The Galra leaps forward toward them and they respond in kind, Shiro launching off a shot of the Plasmacaster. It misses and lands just off to the side, straight down in the water.

Shiro growls out and twists his hand controls. The Plasmacaster shifts, crackling to life with buzzing electricity.

_Woah! Shiro, did you know it could do that?_

_Not a clue, but it looks badass as hell._

He lines up and fires off another shot, this time hitting the Kaiju square in the leg. It cries out and goes down, sinking below the water’s surface. The Black Lion spins around and charges off toward where the Paladin Danger is grappling with the Raiju, but they stop short when the Kaiju screeches, it’s chest glowing blue.

“What the fuck?!” Lance shouts across the comms.

“Guys, we’re on our way! Just hold on!” Keith calls back.

“No! Don’t!” Hunk yells back. “I know what this is, just let it happen!”

“Hunk, what-” Shiro begins, but then the Kaiju completes its attack, and suddenly he understands. A thick, blue pulse of energy bursts forth from the Raiju’s chest, and the Paladin Danger goes dark. It seizes up, its lights go out, and it drops away from the comms.

_Was that a fucking EMP?!_

_They’ve been adapting._

_What the fuck?!_

_I don’t know, but we’ve got incoming!_

The Raiju turns its attention on the Lion and they stumble back. It charges directly for them, chest glowing blue, snarling and snapping its ugly jaws. Just when they brace themselves for the attack, the Galra bursts back through the water, joining it in its rush.

_Why won’t he stay dead?!_

_I dunno, but we’re going to have to come up with something!_

Shiro volleys off a few electric pulses from the Plasmacaster, holding the Kaiju off momentarily. It’s just enough for Keith to think through their options until-

_I’ve got something. It sucks, but it’s something._

_We’ve got no choice!_

Keith pages through the HUD, charging up the nuclear bomb in their storage compartment, and preparing it for drop.

_Keith, if we drop that, then-_

_I know, but we don’t have a choice!_

The tendrils of a backup option twirl through their shared thoughts. It’s...not the best, but it will end the war. Agreement and a hint of sadness slosh through the drift.

_Let’s get this done, then._

They stand their Jaeger at full attention as both Kaiju come crashing into them. They spin off to the side, dropping their payload as they go. They escape the clutches of several sharp claws and take off running. Keith slams his hand down on the HUD once more when they’re out of range, and the nuclear charge detonates.

The water rushes away from their Jaeger and out toward where the Kaiju stand, drawn in by the gravity of the bomb pulling energy into its explosion. White light takes over the night, pulsing out and blinding them as it engulfs both Kaiju in its reach.

Keith and Shiro watch with bated breath as the blip of the Raiju blinks out of existence, signaling its death. They lose sight of the Galra’s signature as well.

_Well, are you ready to end the war?_

_Ready as I’ll ever be._

_It was an honor._

_Yeah, it was._

They trudge out to the corpse of the Raiju. It’s torn apart, two jagged halves leaking blue into the water. Heaving one half up on their shoulder, they swim down into the water to the breach.

“Marshall,” Shiro says into the comms.

“Shirogane,” he acknowledges.

“Delivery of the nuclear payload failed, as I’m sure you can tell. We have another plan. We can still stop it.”

“What do you mean, Ranger?”

Pride bristles through the drift, Shiro preening a bit at finally hearing his old rank again.

“I mean it was a pleasure to serve with you, sir.”

Before Iverson can answer, Shiro reaches out and cuts the comms. Beside him, Keith charges up their nuclear core. They grip the Kaiju corpse tighter to their Jaeger, and make their way over to the breach. Resignation, sadness, and a little bit of fear swirl through them. The icy tendrils of their mortality threaten to lock them in place. The determination to protect their world drives them onward.

Just as they arrive at the breach, Shiro stops his side of the controls. Keith follows suit.

_Keith, I-_

He’s interrupted by the body of the Galra slamming full force into the said of their Jaeger.

_Oh, come the fuck on!_

_Yeah, this is getting old._

They drop the body of the Raiju and spin around to finally put an end to the Galra. Keith draws his sword again, and makes to slash at the Kaiju’s arms, but it gets its tails wrapped around them, and stabs right through their back, taking out their main power and puncturing an air tank with a sharp hiss.

_“Warning: severe systems damage. Air supply compromised. Estimated oxygen remaining: twenty minutes.”_

Their drift hangs on, powered by the backup power supply, but the oxygen in their Conn-Pod begins to grow thin, their breathing becoming labored.

_C’mon, baby. We can do this._

_You talking to me or the robot, Shiro?_

_Hmm. Maybe both._

_Gay._

Laughter resounds through the Conn-Pod.

“Let’s just take this fucker down,” Shiro says out loud.

“I have no choice at this point, but I’m with you,” answers Keith.

The Kaiju pulls the Jaeger toward the breach, and they tumble inside, over and over and over, down and down and down.

All around them, the throat pulses with energy. Red, blue, orange, yellow, lightning, static, _energy_ jumps from the walls. Keith leans forward and engages their nuclear turbine. The blast shoots forth from their machine’s chest, tearing through the Kaiju’s torso, spraying blue and organs and bone, killing it instantly. The corpse falls away, but they’re already through. The force of the blast sends them further down through the throat until eventually, they emerge through a diaphragm on the other side.

All around them, the Lion’s systems grind to a halt. She starts to break down, showering sparks overhead, leaking fluid all over. Their oxygen is growing thinner by the minute and they don’t have much time left. They tear themselves from the drift and their harnesses and leap into action.

Keith and Shiro scramble to the floor, lifting the trapdoor access hatch to their nuclear core. Keith reaches inside and engages the self-destruct, timed for a minute.

“You’re clear!” he shouts over to Shiro.

“Got it!” Shiro calls back, climbing back into his harness. There’s just enough reserve energy in the backup supply to do what they need to do. He hooks himself back into the Jaeger, and presses the button to purge their nuclear core.

He and Keith both look up through their windshield as the Black Lion touches down in the Anteverse. All around them are Kaiju generals, snarling and pointing and writhing. Just behind them, they see it. The heart of the Anteverse. The source of the breach.

“Go, _now_!” Shiro shouts at Keith, and nodding, he springs into action. Shiro guides the Jaeger backward, trapping it in the gravity of the heart, and Keith hauls across to their escape pod, hoping beyond hope that they can make it out alive. The timer on their nuclear core drops to twenty seconds.

“Takashi! Now would be a good time to join me!”

“On it!”

Shiro rushes out of his harness, diving into the escape pod. Keith slams the door closed and kicks the button to engage the rockets. Their pod floats up, and they watch as, below them, the Black Lion explodes.

Shimmering red heat pulses out, sending their pod spinning up and away. Kaiju are sucked into the explosion, torn apart and spread across the corners of the other world. They keep spinning spinning spinning, further and further away until finally, everything goes black.

Keith and Shiro come to in the middle of the ocean with the bright light of the morning blinding them. The door of their escape pod ejects itself somewhere off across the water’s surface, and the walls fall away, leaving them sprawled across an inflatable raft, a small homing beacon blinking off to their side.

 

+++

 

All things considered, the end of the world could have gone worse. Lance leans heavily against Hunk as they watch the recovery of the Black Lion’s Rangers unfold on the screen before them.

The PPDC was able to tow them and The Castle back to base with minimal trouble earlier, so that’s good. It would appear the Black Lion succeeded in their mission without dying, so that’s also good. Still, he’s gonna miss this job a little bit.

He and Hunk thread their fingers together as the Holt siblings watch the breach monitor. It’s blinking red and after a few minutes, the screen lights up with a small, beautiful message.

**UNAVAILABLE.**

Katie nods up at the Marshall. He slides his shoulders back, steps forward to the microphone at the head of the control room, and addresses the hangar, stuffed to the gills with PPDC employees and quiet as the dead. All around the control room, techs are cheering and hugging, tears being shed, and it’s _beautiful_.

The Marshall clears his throat.

“This is Marshall Iverson. The breach is sealed. STOP THE CLOCK!”

The Shatterdome erupts. They all look up above the entry door and watch as the numbers on the event clock slowly roll back until finallyfinallyfinally, it reads all zeros with no further movement.

Matt and Katie are hugging and laughing, their father running up to greet them joyfully. Hunk is sniffling from beside him, wiping his face on Lance’s shoulder as he cries. Iverson releases a sigh of relief, finally looking like a man who can relax.

“Send out the retrieval party,” the Marshall croaks into the comms. Lance closes his eyes and smiles.

 

+++

 

Experts say that ghost-drifting is an anomaly, and one that only belongs to long-established drifts. Those partners have been in each other’s heads so often for so long that sometimes, when they disconnect from the neural network, they just kind of cling for a bit. They eventually take on some of each other’s traits, they feel emotions the other would feel, they think thoughts the other would think. Their minds adjust to the twin souls taking up occasional residence inside.

But here, in this moment, ghost-drifting is no longer a concept. Ghost-drifting is the god’s honest truth. Here, floating in the middle of the Pacific on an emergency raft, waiting for a PPDC chopper to come scoop them up from the water, Keith and Shiro know this to be true.

They disconnected from their neural network who knows how long ago, but they’re still there, swirling in each other’s heads. The connection is fading, whisping away into a dull headache from being abruptly torn from the drift, but it’s there. They sit up on their knees on their raft, hands on each other’s faces, staring into each other’s eyes, and they feel it. It’s there, throbbing behind their vision and pulsing down their spines.

Shiro strokes a thumb over a sharp cheekbone and a spark of devotion pulses from Keith’s core. Keith runs his hand down a sharp-cut jaw and a heavy wave of desire floods forth from Shiro’s chest. Shiro reaches out and tugs Keith forward by the scruff of the neck, crushing their mouths together, and their minds burst with need and assurance and want and happiness and security.

They pull away from each other, a PPDC helicopter cutting through the air in their direction. Their foreheads come to rest against one another, the two peacefully smiling in relief, eyes closed. As the helicopter lowers a rope ladder to retrieve them from their float, the ghost-drift fades, and with it, the last shared tendrils of _home_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the end!  
> i'd just like to say thank you so much to everyone who stuck around for this one!  
> pacific rim is so dear to me, and i had so much fun writing this little blend of two really awesome things.  
> i hope you truly enjoyed it!
> 
> please feel free to come see me on tumblr or twitter any time!  
> see you soon!

**Author's Note:**

> tag urself, i'm shiro running away from other people's disappointment.
> 
> you are more than welcome to visit me on [tumblr](http://tootsonnewts.tumblr.com/) to tell me what you think or talk about thigh muscles and how hunk is too good for us all.
> 
> see you next week!


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